


Land of Nod

by MemoryCrow



Series: Dark Am I, Yet Lovely [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Magic, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fluff, Long-Term Relationship(s), Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mythology References, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, big big love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 41,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8241455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemoryCrow/pseuds/MemoryCrow
Summary: Belle is awake to her true identity in Storybrooke, and is coming to know herself and Rumpelstiltskin in a very different world.





	1. A Different Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is part two, or a continuation of Across The Sky. For those who haven't read Across The Sky, this work begins in Storybrooke, where the first work ended. The town is still under the Curse, but Belle lifted the curse on herself with a spell begun in the Dark Castle.

He was a different man.

  
In ways, Belle thought, he'd been a happier man in the Dark Castle. Or had it been an act? The cavorting, the giggles, the mad, gleeful, happy grin...?

  
Was it all only camouflage for his skin? Because he was unable to physically hide the demon within? A cavalier show of power, hiding sorrow. She knew he'd carried heavy sorrows, and did still. But in the castle, he'd often seemed pleased. Magic pleased him, and was a constant study. His magical trophies, Chloe... and _she'd_ pleased him. He'd been expressive; excessively so. He'd told silly jokes and danced her around the room.

  
... And also, he'd come utterly undone as her lover. Even when he tried, he couldn't truly hold back. Be it love, tenderness.... or a volatile gluttony of passion... he'd been a storm. Hers. She'd given all of herself, somewhat losing herself in the process. But she'd gained as well, and felt that she knew him. As no one else could know him.

  
Rumpelstiltskin.

  
Belle sighed, sitting in her new, quite lovely bedroom, staring out of the window. The land was different both from her homeland and from the Deadlands, but was familiar in that it's trees were old, big and sprawling. So tall, their tips seemed to scratch against a sky that was pale and pearly. They dreamed of snow.

  
As he'd once accused her, she chewed her cud. That hadn't changed; bovine ruminations.

  
She missed the lover she'd known. He must be in this new man, she reasoned. She'd come to herself, and when he saw it, his eyes filled with tears. She'd _felt_ the squeeze of his heart, as hers had done the same. She'd known him at once, even so changed; she'd spoken his name. His name was a spell.

  
He was pleasing to look upon. Interesting; the same quality that captured her at the Dark Castle. His human skin was a novelty, and - as with his demon face - most arresting were his eyes. Belle couldn't stop looking into his eyes, then blushed and looked away. His return stare was too intense.

  
Who are you, she thought?

  
His human eyes were deep. They lacked the brightness, the pupil-startled, gemstone, predatory nature of his demon eyes. They were deep, dark pools, heavy lidded and more guarded than she'd become used to. More vulnerable as well.  
It was this, Belle thought; the vulnerability was the problem. His human skin, the things hidden behind his eyes, the need for a cane, the lack of magic...

  
He disliked vulnerability, as would anyone. Especially a man. The dislike was sometimes hatred. There was a repressed violence within, tightly coiled as a viper, and it made Belle nervous. Uncertain. Maybe there were those who would have been more frightened of the goblin, the devil who occasionally raged about his castle; breaking things, shouting to the rafters, pouting on the roof with bird companions. Locked inside a tower, rife with magic. Powerful.

  
Belle felt more frightened of this man she didn't know. Too much was hidden... the secrets he kept were _kept_ , and did not spill, unbidden, from hopeful, animal eyes. This man didn't caper and giggle, but rather seemed to move with an air of quietly angry dignity. Also contempt. When someone shook his hand, Belle saw that he near trembled with a desire to wipe his hand with his handkerchief. It was once his manner to be ever isolated, choosing when to make an appearance amongst people.... he made a game of it. Now, people were simply all over, part of everyday life.

  
His smile was tight, and often mean. He held warmth rather dear, only showing it to herself and Chloe. Well, that wasn't so different. But whereas he used to chortle and mock, outright threaten others; now he was a quiet menace. Much went unspoken, unexpressed. When it was expressed, it was pointed and sharp.

  
He was a different man.


	2. A Different Woman

To complicate matters, a great deal, in fact, she was a different woman. She was two women, now; and she'd never gotten a firm foothold on the first.

  
Belle came to understand that it was her own spell that had broken her curse... her time travelling, binding, love spell. (Okay, maybe there were three women, or more. Belle thought of a Goblin Queen who had surely assisted in her magic). As for the rest of the time-and-place transplanted town; it still made its daily, dreamy way under Regina's curse.

  
_This_ was difficult. It made Belle want to hole up in Rumpelstiltskin's house, never speaking to anyone but him. Which, to a great degree, they'd both be fine with. When she navigated her way around the town and its people, she felt like she was constantly doing math. It made her head ache, and she was as skittish as a startled cat, wondering when she would say the wrong thing. The wrong name.

  
She was this other person; Lacey. And yes, Lacey was in her, a part of her, often to her embarrassment. She had Lacey's memories, as well as her odd wardrobe. Lacey was actually a big help, lingering within Belle and putting names to faces, histories to names. But still. Someone on the street could call out, "Lacey!" three or four times before she would think... oh! _That's me._ She gained a reputation for dizzy, dreamy distractedness, but that wasn't really new.

   
And Gods... _Regina_.

  
Rumpelstiltskin assured her that Regina didn't read minds, but Belle wasn't sure. In Regina's presence, Belle felt as if her mind chanted in a constant shout, "I'm Lacey! I'm Lacey!"

  
She had to lie _all the time_. As did Rumpelstiltskin, but he seemed used to it. It was one of the few things he seemed to enjoy.

  
Sometimes Lacey seemed to pop out, all on her own. Belle's language became strange to herself. She looked at one dark suit after another, hanging like morose scarecrows in Rumpelstiltskin's closet, and heard herself ask, "What's with all the black, Rumpel? Getting your evil on?" She'd smiled over her shoulder, then faltered. What? she thought. Rumpelstiltskin looked... well, amused. But he'd known Lacey. He was more familiar with her ways and words.

  
Sometimes Belle was hit with one of Lacey's memories of Rumpelstiltskin that made her blush to her toes.... she wasn't quite ready to confront that, yet. Just as she wasn't ready to confront the wealth of tiny dresses, ridiculous shoes, or the little scraps of lace meant to be bloomers.

  
Oh, the clothes. It was odd, how something that was so literally _surface_ could get its claws in. Belle found that she mourned the loss of Rumpelstiltskin's old wardrobe nearly as much as she mourned the loss of her demon lover. Not only were his giggles and peculiar eyes gone, the olive-copper glitter of his skin; but gone were the brocade waistcoats, the elaborate jackets and boots. The leather breeches, hugging to bum and crotch. Gone were the _colors_.... the crimson, gold, walnut brown; autumn yellows and burnt oranges.

  
_Black_. Sometimes navy blue, but it might as well be black. The jackets and trousers were well cut; impeccable, people said; but hid everything about his body.... all of the secrets she once shyly pondered. The colors were limited to little accents; ties, handkerchiefs... an interesting, surprising array of socks.

  
It was so strange to look at this man... this man who was once so ostentatious, boots lacing and buckling up to his thighs...

  
He never wore boots, now. It was always the gloss of his lace-up shoes, or loafers; long trousers hiding the touch of personality in his socks. He came to her bed, once, only to sit on its edge and talk to her awhile before retreating. The nightclothes he'd worn weren't all that different from his suits.

  
Belle had memories of Rumpelstiltskin coming naked to her bed, crawling over her body, eyes predatory, hard cock brushing against her bared skin. She shivered with those memories, her responses a confusion of her own and Lacey's. She wondered if she would ever know him that way again.

  
Her own clothes, or Lacey's, were quite an adjustment as well. Pants, for one. Jeans. Leggings, which she couldn't bring herself to wear in public. She dismissed the little dresses and high heels with barely a thought... she knew on sight she'd never manage them. Everything looked so... weird. She missed her pretty dresses, her shawl. She'd only just begun to understand the flirtation of swishing her skirt around Rumpelstiltskin, glancing from beneath lowered lashes as she turned. How did one do such things in jeans? It didn't feel natural.

  
Lacey had friends... or at least those who were close, regular acquaintances in her life. Belle had never made friends, aside from Rumpelstiltskin. Now she felt otherworldly, stilted, and as if she walked on eggshells. With Mary Margaret; formerly the princess,Snow White; she could focus on the birds they rehabilitated. Mary Margaret was a polite sort, sometimes nearly as quiet as Belle. She didn't ask many questions about Belle's life at home.

  
... But this _Ruby_. Gods. She felt free to ask anything. _Everything_. Her language!

  
_Has he fucked you, yet? What's it like? Do you go down on him?_

  
Ruby could send Belle into a complete panic. She dug deep, seeking Lacey's responses, and most often came up with something not unlike flirtation. Sly looks, non-answers. Shrugs followed by smiles that concealed, while pretending to reveal.

  
It was so strange, so disorienting. A roiling confusion of feelings and reactions. Her shyness around the new Rumpelstiltskin made her feel rather prudish, and -in truth- she'd never been so blunt as Ruby in her speech. Yet she _had_ done the things Ruby spoke of, and more. Ruby might actually be shocked, were she to learn of all that had transpired in the Dark Castle.

  
Belle couldn't imagine it, now. Rumpelstiltskin was so different. He didn't seem to want her in the same way, and Belle had no idea what _she_ might want.... apart from the reassurance that he was at her side. Perhaps a reassurance of magic.

  
They shared that, it seemed. He wanted her always near; he didn't like to lose sight of her. And he wanted magic.

 


	3. Touch

When Belle hugged Rumpelstiltskin, her hand always went to his hair. Her fingers stroked at his nape, her other hand warm on his back. Rumpelstiltskin felt it like a life-force; waves, soothing energy moving into his body.

  
It was as startling, now, as it had been at home. Her first touches... a hand on his shoulder, the tips of her fingers, brushing against his. He hadn't been able to believe it, then.... that she would touch him at all, green ghoul that he was.

Why did it still seem so unbelievable? So unreal?

  
He'd touched her body a great deal when she was Lacey, but Lacey had initiated all of it. She'd cuddled to him on the couch; she'd circled her arms around him from behind, pressing her head to his back.

  
Now that Belle was truly Belle, she was shy. He, in his startling transformation, was a stranger to her. It was up to him now... to take steps, to initiate. To touch her. To remind them both of who they were; their connection.

  
It overwhelmed him.... his sleep was full of torrid dreams.... _Gods_.... the ways he'd _taken_ her, before. He'd hated himself, loathing his looks; and yet the demon, so present in his body, part of the living magic; had given him strength, vitality. He didn't think he could please her, now, as he'd done then.

  
Still. There was touch. Comforting, reassuring, perhaps bonding... human touch. He craved hers, and endeavored to reach out to her. to become familiar. Known.

  
Of course, Regina was insufferable. It had been annoying to endure her taunts when Lacey lived in her own apartment, only spending a great deal of time at his house. Belle, though nervous of him, didn't want to be away from him. Nor did he want her away, especially at night. And so it appeared to all of Storybrooke that wayward Lacey, calmer after months of being in his company, moved in with him.

  
Seeing them holding hands on the street, Regina's looks spoke volumes. Then her voice kicked in.

  
Well. It was irksome, but he had Belle. In fact, he had a sort of Belle/Lacey combo, enough to drive anyone a bit mad... He began to envy the cursed population their memory loss. Once the curse was broken, should the Savior ever get to it, it would be identity crisis all around. If Archie could overcome his own crisis, he would grow rich.

  
Meanwhile, let Regina smirk and gloat. He held Belle's hand, and would not let go. He held his hand to the small of her back, guiding her. He touched. He felt her warmth, and soaked in the conflict in her blue eyes; trust mingled with alienation. _Who are you_? her eyes asked.

  
_Rumpelstiltskin_ , he tried to make her see.

  
"This was my face before the Dark One's curse." he reminded her.

  
"I know. It's a nice face, Rumpel."

  
"Indeed? I wouldn't go as far as that, dearie. It's still me, however."

  
"I know."

  
In truth, they hadn't been apart for so terribly long. And her body, as well as a lingering part of her psyche had been with him all along. But the land was different, the times were different. The people.... a land without magic.

  
And he didn't look or act like the man, the monster she remembered.

  
He touched her, sometimes with calculated deliberation; Sometimes only because she was Belle, and he had to. His hand stroked her back, lingered in her autumn hair. His arm wound protectively around her shoulders. His fingertips moved over her face, touched her jaw, remembering.

  
He held her hand.


	4. Magic

Belle was grateful that Lacey had already established the Library as her second home. Finally; something that felt natural, where she need not be such an actress. Lacey's favorite chair was Belle's favorite chair; her interests were in line with Belle's. In the Library, Belle could simply be herself, and others were convinced she was Lacey.

  
It was in the Library that she began a secret study of magic. This land was without magic, as Rumpelstiltskin said. So it would seem. Compared to home, it was true.... Belle could feel the absence of magic, as if an important element had been leached from the air. One breathed differently in Storybrooke, and wondered what it was the lungs, the skin had long taken for granted.

  
And yet there were books about magic, all sorts. People in this world wished for it, and had thoughts about it. Some claimed to practice it, though it was a far cry from Rumpelstiltskin's storm and honey scented magic, smoky and filling up the tower room. It was a far cry from Regina's black Curse, rolling in like a tidal wave, creating silence in its wake.

  
The books she read described it as energy, not really different from what Rumpelstiltskin taught her. They used different words for the energy in different parts of the world; chi, ka, numen... It was described as a natural force or life force, moving in and around everything and everyone.

  
It was the very idea Belle had worked when she worked her spell.... Surely, then, there must be remnants, scraps of magic in this land. If it were completely gone, would so many people continue to wish, and even to believe, century after century?

  
Well, maybe. Certainly Rumpelstiltskin held the hopes and dreams of many others in a mild contempt. He found most people to be naive and unrealistic. But even he, _especially_ he prized imagination; a different way of thinking. A different perception. He nurtured it in her, even as he refused to allow hope within himself.

  
There must be magic, Belle thought. Perhaps weak, perhaps inaccessible or obscured... but it lived. She wanted to learn its secrets, its language. She wanted it for its own sake, as one wishes for a companion. Without agenda or a craving for power, she wanted magic... as she always had. Her mind felt restless for it.

  
Rumpelstiltskin knew of places within Storybrooke that were special. They were not places of magic, but there was potential, he said. Places where the boundaries separating worlds was thinned; to stand in those places was, in a sense, to open oneself to other possibilities. It was also to be cautious, he said; to be aware and careful. The thinning of boundaries was not simply between Storybrooke and home. It was between many, different worlds... even a world of death; an Underworld.

  
This, too, was familiar to Belle. It was the call the Deadlands made to her spirit, the way it woke a prescience of magic within her. An Underworld that introduced her to her other selves, and showed her the spirit-like children she'd dreamily made with Rumpelstiltskin.

  
She couldn't let go of magic, of a need to feel it, even in a world Rumpelstiltskin called "barren". He spat the word, accent harsh and R's rolling.

  
But the Deadlands were called "barren", and they were not. Belle missed them, so. The hollow hills, the whisper of tree-line to stone, stone to sky. The Deadlands had been as fertile a place as she'd ever known, but it was a fecundity of spirit. An abundance of owls, the animal kingdom as messengers of magic.

  
In the Storybrooke Library, she read of Faeries... those creature Rumpelstiltskin so hated. She wasn't convinced, however, that the beings he despised at home were the same beings described in her books. It seemed to Belle that, in this world, there was an overlap of the Fae and Death. Spirit. She read words presented as fiction, studied drawings, and was often put in mind of her Goblin Queen self; those weird babies. Things of nature, earth and spirit, things that seemed so different from the practitioners of magic that Rumpelstiltskin described.

  
The places of thinned boundaries in Storybrooke were like descriptions of openings to Faerie, to an Underground. A hill with a grove of hawthorn trees. A water well, deep in a forest of oak, ash and elder trees; holly and birch. A stretch of land edging a creek fed by an underground spring, alder trees; deciduous, yet bearing tiny cones; lined the creek as it stretched into a hinterland.

  
The land, itself, was not barren in the least. Its green was full and vibrant, aggressive. Even over out-croppings of rock, hills and mountains where the earth once heaved up; ravines, narrow or broad, where it shifted and was carved out by water; green stirred. Trees leaned over chasms from an anchor of bare rock, appearing to be rooted there. Ferns covered everything. Within wooded areas, the hush was complete, Belle's feet were cushioned and her step silenced by moss and leaf-fall that was wet and humusy.

  
Many of the books she read proposed that, once, magic had been a part of the world.... taken for granted, like air, much as in her homeland. Not all could wield it, yet it was there; alive. A nutrient of air or water, in the mineral and chemistry of earth and plant. The books also spoke of the modern world, the very world in which Belle now found herself, and in which she'd have been utterly lost if not for the foundation of Lacey.

  
The modern world, it seemed, was a great boon to people. Belle couldn't disagree. Everywhere she looked, she saw more prosperity and equality than in her homeland. Even those who might considered poor were wealthy compared to the poor of the Enchanted Forest.

  
It was different, in this world, and opportunity was different. It was all due to a modern world; to an Industrial Revolution, a way of life that opened up trade, commerce and mass production. Travel, education. There was a Technical Revolution... It was staggering, really; more muscled and voracious than she'd ever known of magic.... the path of this modern world and the people who kept it on its forward, progressive momentum.

  
And yet it was supposed by some that it was this very momentum, progress, that did away with the magic of the land. It was paved over, its life-force sapped by steel and plastic, confounded by electricity. Belle wondered if it could be true, for the places Rumpelstiltskin showed her, those of thinned boundaries, were all in the natural world.

  
As if by instinct, perhaps guided by an echo of the Dark One, Rumpelstiltskin had come to know all of the untamed land in Storybrooke. Even in his new civility, be-suited and disdainful of men lumbering about in jeans and workboots, he combed the woods. Even with a cane and an old injury, he could show Belle deer paths that he'd expanded, a river that met the spring fed creek; the steep hill of thorn trees and meadows and pastures where stood empty, abandoned out-buildings of wood, overgrown and - to Belle - haunted.

  
His house was in the woods, far from town, and he had gardens, flower beds. Belle cataloged the flowers, as she cataloged birds. So many of them were noted in her books of magic... flowers associated with witches, or faeries. Flowers that were said to breathe magic, and were used in spells... foxglove, primroses, pansy, violet, wild thyme, rosemary...

  
Rumpelstiltskin only smirked at her when she mentioned such things. It was infuriating, really; the way he indulged her as if she was a fanciful child. A bit delayed, perhaps. With a tolerant smile, something that perhaps she, alone, might ever see, he said, "The flowers are pretty, dearie. But they won't yield anything like power."

  
"You planted them." Belle said.

  
He looked at her with a patient brow raise, as he often did when she stated the obvious.

  
Trying to make her point, Belle continued, " You must have known that they're historically considered to have magical properties... in this world. Or maybe the Dark One knew."

  
With a shrug of an elegantly clad shoulder, a considering frown, Rumpelstiltskin said, "I suppose it's possible, Belle. But it hardly matters. Play with your posies all you like... They won't open a safe passage out of Storybrooke. They won't muzzle Regina or bring me Bae. They're play pretties, dearie."

  
Belle suppressed a little huff. Maybe he was right, for his need of power and magic as a means to an end was great, whereas she only wanted to feel the magic. To be a part of it.

  
Still. Pretty posies had been a part of her spell, and it had traveled through time. It had crossed worlds, and birthed itself in a land that lived and breathed without magic.


	5. Medicine

"Let me try." Belle said.

  
Rumpelstiltskin looked pained... Actual pain was etched in a tension at this mouth and temples. Impatience with people in and out of his shop also pained him. Belle knew she was taxing him, as well. Her solicitousness of him... the subterfuge of her very name.

  
It couldn't be helped. She brought a tall stool to where Rumpelstiltskin stood, leaning heavily on his cane, and said, "Sit."

  
"You needn't tend to me, dearie. Or order me about. I'm not a child. I'm not an invalid."

  
"Then stop pouting like a child. Stop being churlish like an invalid."

  
Oh, ho. If these people only knew who he was. They would salute her bravery. He settled on the stool, both hands resting on the handle of his cane, one atop the other. His look was scathing, and Belle felt her cheeks burn. She ignored it. And there he went again, in spite of his eyes that mollified and sent daggers her way; the bottom lip she loved, rather different on his human face, protruded in a pout.

  
"That's better." she murmured, and settled her hand on his knee for a moment. It got his attention. His eyes softened, their depth swallowing Belle. Taking heart, she slid her hand up his thigh, a little, and gave a warm squeeze.

  
A man in the shop said, "Where did you get this collection of wilderness books, Gold? They're fantastic." The books were bound in fraying cloth; thin pages edged in gold, filled with delicate, intricate drawings.

  
Rumpelstiltskin raised a questioning brow to Belle, a slight nod indicating her hand on its dangerous journey. He said, "One estate sale or another."

  
Belle bit her lip and eased her hand back towards his knee. His legs were open; she insinuated herself between them, coupled to his cane.

  
"Careful, dearie." he said, softly.

  
"You're not so breakable." Belle said.

  
His mouth made a pursed, sardonic smile. "I wasn't worried about my fragility."

  
"What troubles you, then?"

  
With a purr, he said, "Matters less civilized. More... beastly." (*)

  
Belle's lips parted. She wanted to explore this; she had follow-up questions. Words of a cheeky, leading nature bubbled up to her throat. She inhaled, but it was then that the customer arrived at the counter... Not with the books, but with an oddly shaped pouch of leather. The Lacey part of Belle informed her that it was an old, Boy Scout binocular case. The man was called Archie, and was a funny, mild sort. She found herself blushing anew; Archie's eyes would not meet hers, and she was forming notions that Lacey had tormented him in some mortifying fashion.

  
Stepping away from Rumpelstiltskin, she said, "I'll get a bag for this."

  
Rumpelstiltskin swiveled to the big, gilt and onyx embellished, layer-cake like contraption that was his register, and rang up Archie's purchase. Belle wrapped it in pretty tissue and plopped it in a raffia handled bag. It felt so funny... the surly shop-keep and his help-mate. So it appeared. She had a flash of Rumpelstiltskin on the roof outside of his tower window, sitting with an owl who all but disappeared into the encompassing night.

  
This was another life, truly.

  
The bell over the shop door rang as Archie left, and Rumpelstiltskin surprised Belle by pulling her close. He lay his cane on the counter, and brought her back, between his legs.

  
"Rumpel."

  
"It's Gold, dearie. _Lacey_."

  
"I can't get used to that. What was Regina thinking?"

  
"The real question is what was Archie thinking? He seemed quite frightened of you, love." He said the words fondly, and Belle found herself wondering - not for the first time - about Rumpelstiltskin's feelings for Lacey. He rather admired her general dislike of people.

  
With a shrug, she said, "You would know better than I... I suppose Lacey did some wrongful thing."

  
"Aye. Though I doubt it was anything overly calculated. She likely just bent over." He grinned, leaving Belle at a slight loss.

  
"You're in rare form."

  
A snicker escaped him, and Belle was shocked to feel him capture one nipple in a light pinch. Even with sweater, blouse, and the tortuous contraption that was a bra, he unerringly found her nipple. She hadn't been touched in such a manner by this new version of her lover.

  
With a yelp, she slapped his hand. It was instinct... she didn't truly want to discourage him. He lowered his hand but continued to smile at her. It was a little like the Rumpelstiltskin she once knew, showing through the human face.

  
"I'm afraid you inspire misbehavior, my dear."

  
"Do I? How so?"

  
"Oh... just generally. In your outfit, prim and proper... modest. Yet I remember the landscape, beneath."

  
Belle took a breath. Old feelings were coming back, and were alarming. She still didn't quite have a map of this Rumpelstiltskin.

  
"I thought you were grumpy, with a leg that pained you."

  
"Don't remind me." he said with a grimace.

  
"Which brings me back to my point."

  
Smiling, Rumpelstiltskin said, "Indeed? You had a point?"

  
"I did." Belle said, hands on his shoulders. "My point is that you should let me try and make you feel better."

  
His eyes shone with a lascivious gleam, bringing out Belle's blush again. She bit her lip, a habit that wouldn't die.

  
"I can't imagine that I would protest such a thing." he purred.

  
Gods, Belle thought. His voice. She'd heard this low, soft timbre and rasp in the Dark Castle, but not with such regularity. She found it a strange, seductive reminder of the Dark One. Had he sounded like this before he was cursed?

  
"Don't play with my words." she chided. She adjusted his tie and shirt collar, feeling absurdly intimate in the gesture. She felt his hands come to rest on her hips, and thrilled to it. "Let me try to use energy on your leg."

  
Well, that did it. He rolled his eyes, hugely and almost with as much drama and flair as his former self.

  
"Belle... fuck's sake."

  
"I know it sounds silly. But I've studied it... different forms of healing and energy. I've experimented on myself."

  
"Indeed?" his eyes went languid, hooded.

  
"Hush, you. I can feel the energy, Rumpel. I'm gaining a feel for it. Its not magic, I grant you.."

  
"No. It isn't."

  
"But it might help."

  
Rumpelstiltskin heaved a heavy sigh, and Belle couldn't help but notice that he seemed to address her breasts.

  
"It can't heal me, dearie. The injury is so ancient, and so long masked with magic... no amount of mucking about with meridians and such can repair it. Besides, this land has inbuprofen and naproxen... it's almost as good as magic."

  
Belle touched her finger beneath his chin, bringing his eyes back to hers. She flattened her hands on his chest, feeling his warmth through his clothes. She moved them lower down his torso, under his jacket... she scented smoke, tobacco, vetiver... tell-tale scents of the man, the wizard that was. The demon.

  
"If that were true, you wouldn't be hurting so much, now. Perhaps I can't heal you," she admitted, " but I can ease your pain. What can it hurt, Rumpel?"

  
"Gold."

  
"Let me try."

  
As he sighed once more; poor, put upon man; Belle let her hands slide around his neck. It was her favorite thing, her fingers in the feathers of his hair, laying against the nape of his neck, curling up and under. It was a subversive little note in this world; a small rebellion in an otherwise impeccable man, elegant in his wealth. To Belle, it was a mark of who he once was. She felt the silky softness of his hair, scenting cloves... warm musk; cooling magic.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Belle's lips curled in a smile she tried to smother.

  
"Really, dearie?"

  
"I'm sorry. I'm not used to the clothing, here."

  
She tried hard to reign in her mirth, for this was the first time Rumpelstiltskin had deigned to undress in her presence. She didn't want to discourage or inhibit him.

  
... But.... it was funny. She sat on the edge of Rumpelstiltskin's bed, hands folded in her lap and ankles crossed. Rumpelstiltskin stood a bit crookedly before her in his shirtsleeves, rather loose boxers, colorful socks and sock suspenders. Who knew about _those_? Beneath the untucked tail of his shirt and the blousiness of his boxers, he was skinny-legged and knobby-kneed.

  
"I didn't really want you to make a close investigation of my leg." he said.

  
It sobered Belle somewhat. He hop-swiveled to sit beside her on the bed, and bent to remove suspenders and socks.She could feel the shame he felt over the injury... it came from him like thick pulses of heat. She knew he hated the very notion of infirmity, and was deeply embarrassed by having inflicted the injury upon himself. In this world, without magic, he couldn't run from physical signs of his past.

  
"I'd have to see it, sooner or later." Belle said, trying for lightness. "Unless you planned to never shed your clothes for me."

  
Rumpelstiltskin grunted at that, righting himself. "I suppose it's all yours, then, dearie."

  
Belle smiled. Compulsively she leaned towards him, placing a soft kiss against his lips. She shivered inside, the brief contact shocking. She felt Rumpelstiltskin shiver as well.

  
"Alright." she said.

  
She went to her knees at his feet, and -as he'd feared - she made a study of his leg. It wasn't so bad as he supposed, but Belle shuddered to think of how he'd broken his own bones.... and how they must pain him, now, having healed improperly. The shin bone of one leg was straight and strong, the ankle nearly as knobby as the knee, but firm. His other leg showed lumps and knots along the shin; places where alignment of bone wasn't quite right, muscle and ligament misshapen because of it. His ankle was swollen at the bone, and hot.

  
"Alright." she said again, trying to overcome her empathy for him enough to be objective. She stared at his feet... the same bony feet, long toes... but now the color of human flesh and with semi-translucent, glossy nails. Light, caramel colored hair lay over his thighs and lower legs, almost invisible at his knees.

  
Gingerly, she cupped her hands around his hurt ankle.

  
"Careful, love." Rumpelstiltskin said, quiet.

  
Belle looked up at him. His hair shadowed his face, wing-like, as he looked down at her. His eyes were pools. She nodded, then closed her eyes. She _felt_.

  
She could readily feel the way his leg radiated heat; pointedly at his ankle, more diffuse along his shin... then it abruptly cooled, just below his knee. She didn't touch him, but moved her hands slowly through the air, only a few inches from his skin.She felt the injury, even in the air surrounding him. She felt as if her hands moved over little bumps and ridges, skidding on air. As her hands moved near his ankle, her mind was clouded with darkness. The air her hands moved through felt thick, like molasses. It slowed her motion and brought a sickly feeling to her throat and stomach.

  
For a long while she kept her eyes closed, feeling her way. With her mind, her _intent_ , and with the motions of her hands and fingers, she tried to pull pain and inflammation away from Rumpelstiltskin. Little by little, it felt to her as if the heat at his ankle diminished. The oily, sick feeling in her throat diminished. As it happened, she changed her intent. Rather than pulling something out of him, she focused on sending healing into Rumpelstiltskin; a sort of nourishment... maybe an abbreviated sort of magic. She lost track of time.

  
She was startled when she felt his hand touch her head. Opening her eyes, she looked up at him, and his hand came to her jaw. His thumb caressed her cheek.

  
"Has it helped at all?" she asked, her voice soft. It seemed as if the room hummed.

  
"Indeed," Rumpelstiltskin sounded surprised. "It did, Belle. The pain is considerably less."

  
Belle smiled, pleased. She resisted smugness as well as she could, but Rumpelstiltskin said, "Happy with ourselves, are we?"

  
"Well."

  
His thumb came to caress over her lips, and Belle felt her body tense and go still, as if startled into suspense. She all but held her breath, watching Rumpelstiltskin's face and feeling the soft touch against her lips. Her lips parted.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*) For beastlycheese :)


	6. Male of the Species

"You are so lovely." Rumpelstiltskin said. "I missed you, terribly."

  
Beginning to taste his skin, inhaling the smoky scent of his fingertips, Belle said, "You had Lacey." How strange it was to speak of herself as something separate.

  
"I'm glad for it, " he acknowledged, "But it wasn't the same, Belle. She was a part of you, but not you. She hadn't your memories."

  
"And yet," Belle smiled, the pad of his thumb against her teeth, " it seems she was mad for you."

  
"Well. I've a devastating affect on women. It's my youth and beauty, you see."

  
"Ah."

  
Belle touched Rumpelstiltskin with care. After holding her hand about his ankle for a moment, she began sliding both hands up and down his calves. Her palms, fingertips, informing her of muscle, soft hair. Her insides were shaking, still hanging on a precipice... she breathed long, even breaths, her mouth still claimed.

  
"So." Rumpelstiltskin said. He brought his hands to the hem of his boxers, and flounced them like a skirt. "You like this ensemble, do you dearie?"

  
"I especially like the sock suspenders."

"Pervert."

  
Belle smiled broadly, feeling the tension and fluttering in her belly ease. Coming upright on her knees, she moved her hands in a warm slide up Rumpelstiltskin's thighs.

  
"Again, dearie." he tsked her with one finger. "You're venturing onto beastly ground."

  
Belle slipped her fingertips under the hem of the silly boxers, and said, "Uh-oh."

  
"Dearie."

  
Caution, and something considerably warmer, made a low growl of Rumpelstiltskin's voice. Belle felt determination in her mind, longing in her body. She, too, felt some of the caution she heard in his voice. Her longing was both for physical connection as well as the ease with which her mind had connected to Rumpelstiltskin's in the Dark Castle. Proceed with care, her mind warned. She felt as if the day was bringing them both closer to the people they once were, and yet this new Rumpelstiltskin... could sometimes be unpredictable. It was seldom she'd seen him allow his dignity to be compromised.

  
As her mind reigned her in, her body, her breath informed her differently. _To hell with all that_. She slid her hands all the way up, her forearms disappearing under the boxers. She avoided the most incendiary parts, instead stroking to the outside of his legs, her hands coming to knead at the bunched muscle of his hips. Her mind made a luscious keening, released somewhat from chains. She gloried to feel his naked flesh, the curve that began his backside. Her body leaning close to his, she gloried in his heat and scent, a heady mix of civility and wildness. The scent of his shop followed him home, as his tower room once had. Books, and sunlight that filtered into murky depths, dancing through cut crystals that hung in the window. Old leather and wood, lemon scented polish and honey'd beeswax.

  
He smelled, too, of the dark earth, the woods. So different from the wind and cold stone of the Deadlands. The scent was sharply green; humus soil and ancient trees. Belle felt, as she often did, that she drowned in his scent.

  
Her motion was forward. Rumpelstiltskin, as if taking on her motion as a wave, moved back. He leaned back, hands braced on the bed, staring at her. A note of wildness was in his dark eyes, his lips parted.

  
"Perhaps we should slow down." he said, voice husky.

  
The lust in his voice, the flush at his face affected Belle. She groaned aloud, her hands grabbing flesh where his thighs met his hips. It was so like the feel of pulling him inside her.

  
"Oh, Rumpel. We've been going slowly."

  
... Then she saw it. There it was. His cock peeped out of an opening in the boxers.... what was the meaning of this garment? Something in her chest spluttered, and she burst into laughter.

  
"Oh, well, now you've done it." He covered his genitals with both hands, sitting up straight.

  
"No..." Belle couldn't breathe. She shook her head, no. It had been a rather sudden presence... so like a jack-in-the-box, or maybe a chipmunk, peeping from its little den. Looking about for predators. She hadn't, at that exact moment, thought to meet it again.

  
"No." she said again, smiling at Rumpelstiltskin.

  
"No?"

  
Her protest made no sense. It was all she could get out. Biting her lip, she shook her head again.

  
"I'm not laughing at _it_." she managed.

  
"It appears you are."

  
The more she laughed, trying to gulp it back, the more he frowned. Two creases at the bridge of his nose deepened.

  
"You just surprised me."

  
"Really? You touch me as you do, and you're surprised by..."

  
He seemed at a loss for words, which struck Belle as odd. Under such circumstances, the demon she'd known had loved to bandy about words that made her blush. He'd loved to be smilingly frank about the most intimate of drives... the secrets of the body.  
With deliberation, Belle sobered herself and met Rumpelstiltskin's eyes. She was still getting used to them... the way they could reveal more than his gemstone eyes, and yet become closed to her as well. Like curtains snapped shut.

  
"By.... cock?" she offered, helpfully. Her palms remained at his hips, fingers digging in. But her thumbs moved to caress low at his belly, skimming past hipbones. She felt his shiver... the tremble at his abdomen. The forward motion wouldn't stop... a familiar heaviness took hold, as if she were a tipped glass of liquid... she was going to pour out all over Rumpelstiltskin, helpless to do otherwise.

  
His breath came hard from his parted lips. After a moment, holding her eyes, he uncovered himself and leaned back on his hands, once more.

  
It no longer peeped. It surged. Her laughter had done little to discourage it, in spite of Rumpelstiltskin's hesitance. It stretched from the opening in his boxers to his belly, nuzzling to his finely woven shirt.

  
More than any other part of him, Belle instantly recognized it as part of her demon. It was darker than the rest of him, for one. It was a feral thing. Its size and mushroomed head made her go sliipery-wet with remembered feeling, with hunger. It was lush, vigorous, sultry and hot... it radiated heat in a way that was altogether different from his ankle.

  
"I'd nearly forgotten," Rumpelstiltskin all but croaked, "how much you love cock."

  
Gods. There he was. Belle blushed furiously, feeling a spasm deep in her sex.

  
" _Yours_." she whispered. "I love yours."

  
"Do you... still like it? Does it please you?"

  
A sound like a kitten's mew whined from her throat. She nodded, but found she'd lost her rash momentum. She remained on her knees, hands at his hips, staring from his uninhibited cock to his uncertain, searching eyes.

  
"Oh... dearie, dearie, dear." He also stared from the spectacle of himself to her eyes.

  
"Now what?" Belle asked.

  
Rumpelstiltskin smiled at that. " Well. I can think of three or four things without any effort at all. But I'm open to suggestion."

  
Oh, oh, oh. It was strange. Belle felt awash in a conflict of body and mind; her body quite willing, her mind lagging behind a bit. She still felt uncertain about the human man before her... The demon, once bared, could not have held back. The man on the bed displayed his want, offered it up like a very, lewd flower of sorts, but he waited. He waited for her.

  
Lacey, Belle thought. Help me.

  
Actually, the odd appeal to what was, ultimately, _herself_ seemed to help. Instead of the touch of alienation that was stealing over her, what she began to feel was... curiosity. It was a new twist in wondering; who is this Rumpelstiltskin? She wanted to know. If there were differences... quirks, feelings, patterns.... she wanted to discover them. If there were likenesses, she wanted to know that, too.

  
"I'm feeling quite the conspicuous wallflower, dearie."

  
Belle detached herself and stood. She said, "Maybe this will help." She pulled off her top, and struggled with the still-foreign bra; the hook and eye contraption at her back. She watched Rumpelstiltskin's face, upturned, taking in her every motion; her every inch of bared skin. His eyes, hooded and yet large, seemed to devour her. She watched the rise ad fall of his chest... as she'd noticed in the past, she took in the subtle jump of his cock as it responded to his pulse. The beat of his blood.

  
She'd worn her hair in a loose ponytail; she pulled the band out, letting her hair fall free, then more or less presented herself. Breasts bared; a distinctly not-modern woman who yet wore a pair of loose jeans, the time-softened waistband dropping below her belly button.

  
"Yes. That helps quite a lot." Rumpelstiltskin said.

  
Though beginning to feel more comfortable, some of Lacey's thoughts on the matter of _Gold_ bolstering her nerve, Belle felt herself blush. As she had in the shop, she moved to stand between Rumpelstiltskin's legs; taller than him, now. He was level to her breasts, and he ogled openly, lips soft.

  
"Do you want to touch me?" Belle asked.

  
His eyes flickered up to hers. Rather than answering, his hands came to her bosom. He grasped both breasts, palms warm, and squeezed. Belle took a quick, shuddering breath, a little spike of adrenaline firing to be so touched.She leaned down, further filling his hands, and touched her fingertips to his cock.

  
It jumped, seeking her. It was hot to the touch, the skin soft; almost silky. Rumpelstiltskin's intake of breath was much like her own.

  
"I want to kiss you." he said, voice low.

  
Belle had wanted to kiss him... truly kiss him... for so long. She sat beside him on the the bed, then lay back as he moved over her. One of his legs settled over her, between her legs, and he nuzzled her neck, mouth at her jaw. Then his mouth was on hers. Belle felt her heart seize up, painful. It was as if it made a tight fist in her chest, then abruptly opened. She was flooded. Feelings, blood... slickness between her legs, a rushing in her head. Her body was overwhelmed with a flood of sensation and information, her mouth open to Rumpelstiltskin.

  
He took of her greedily, his lips and tongue voracious. Belle breathed hard through her nose.... she couldn't think, or even have the will to touch him. Her arms were flung back over her head, and she only breathed, overtaken and struggling to keep up with the rush of feelings as her body sang.

  
Rumpelstiltskin moaned, breathing into her. His lips moved against hers. His hand held and massaged one breast, and he eventually broke the kiss, moving lower to suckle her. Belle gasped, back arching, pressing herself into the warm, wet feeling of his mouth at her nipple. She felt, again, something like pain, as if he pulled, drew something from her body. The pain was also aching pleasure; the two could not be separated.

  
When he returned to her mouth, his kiss was less ferocious. He looked at her for some moments, his fingers touching her face, her lips. Belle looked back. It was so very different from looking to her owl-eyed, demon man... but it was still him; Rumpelstiltskin. She felt his appetite, and the way it still warred with self-loathing. She felt his love for her.

  
He brought his open mouth to hers, but his kiss was a tease. A fluttering of the tip of his tongue to hers, lips barely touching, so that a jolting sensation rocketed through Belle. Electricity made a flaring path within her body, and then moved moltenly between her legs. She pressed and rode against his leg, and the groan that came from his throat was full of warm approval.

  
How strange, she thought, that kisses could be so different. His first kiss had communicated need, raw hunger. It connected them, causing Belle's head to swim in blackness... she only _felt_. Skin, scent, the beating of blood, a seeming transference of thought. His second kiss _evoked._.. _insinuated_. His tongue teased hers and woke images of his tongue, at play between her legs; his cock, wet with her arousal, sliding into her. The idea of it... this human man _tasting_ her and moving inside of her caused an uncontrolled shaking in her belly.

  
_"I want you_." Rumpelstiltskin rasped.

  
Belle felt his hand come to work the button and zipper of her jeans. She lifted her hips, helping him to pull off both jeans and the little, useless and baffling panties. In an urgent, fumbling awkwardness, he removed the roomy boxers, but he paid his shirt no mind.

  
It happened so fast. After so much hesitation and uncertainty, so many pauses and false starts.... Belle gasped to feel his hand between them, his fingers feeling the heat and wetness between her legs. He groaned, his mouth finding hers, and he groaned again as her hand traveled down to join his.

  
She held his cock, her body thrilling to it. Struck with an urgency that matched his, she guided it to her opening. Then, in a shock of pleasure-pain, he slid inside of her fully.

  
Mouths briefly parted, they both cried out. Belle's knees reflexively pulled up, her legs wrapping about him. Rumpelstiltskin was still for a moment, staring down at her. He looked pained, causing a question in Belle's mind, and he said, " Oh.... _fuck_. This is going to be quick, love."

  
... Quick?

  
He kissed her again, one hand holding firm to her leg, holding her close to his body. His hips began to thrust... Belle breathed and cried out against his mouth, feeling heat, pleasure ripple over her skin and throughout her body. She clung to him, rocked. The soles of her feet felt a hot tingling, and her sex made a desperate squeeze.

  
_"Oh! Fuck! Belle!_ " Rumpelstiltskin gasped and his hips went into a little convulsion. He buried his head to her neck, and she felt his teeth close on her shoulder. His pelvis pressed close, he was sealed to her, and Belle realized that he'd _come_. His breath at her ear was wracked and harsh. His body trembled.

  
It _was_ quick.

  
Wondering over this new element, Belle stroked her hands through his hair. His body became more weighty over hers, relaxing to a near-sleep. She wondered over that, too.

  
"Rumpel?"

  
"Mmm."

  
"Are you sleeping?"

  
He didn't answer so much as nuzzle at neck and groin. He was softening inside of her... it gave Belle the odd feeling that she'd melted him in her heat. She still burned; brightly.

  
Voice muffled, barely coherent, Rumpelstiltskin said, "I'm sorry, dearie. I'll make it up to you."

  
The words were barely out before he became heavier, his breath a steady, even, deeply content sound at her ear. In a way, Belle was also content. She felt so happy to have finally broken a physical barrier with Rumpelstiltskin. To begin to know him again... to realize this man truly was him. She was content to be naked, beneath his body, feeling his heavy purr and covered in his scent, so warm and now touched with sex.

  
But, oh.... she ached.


	7. Girls

Belle said, "Listen to this. ' One style of sex can be bare bones, fundamental and unromantic, but a kiss is the height of voluptuousness, an expense of time and an expanse of spirit in the sweet toil of romance, when one's bones quiver, anticipation rockets, but gratification is kept at bay on purpose, in exquisite torment, to build a succulent crescendo of emotion and passion.' " (*)

  
Her look sarcastic, Ruby said, "That's a lot of big words to say you're horny."

  
Belle felt herself blush, a thing which never failed to amuse Ruby. She looked down at her book, letting her hair fall forward in hopes of concealing her wayward blood. One of Ruby's favorite games was to repeatedly say, "Wow. Look at how red your face is. _Look_. It's getting even redder. You're like a tomato." It seemed Belle's cheeks would simply oblige for as long as Ruby wished... the heat could become painful.

  
"But don't you _feel_ those words?" Belle asked.

  
She sometimes felt words like touch. She read "exquisite torment" and felt her belly tighten; the pulling back of a bow-string. She was instantly filled with an image of when she'd once managed to _spank_ Rumpelstiltskin. For being bad. She remembered pulling his head back by his hair, and oh.... the exquisite torment on his face. So open mouthed and overcome, eyes closed, and his darker, coppery-green skin mottled with his own blush.

  
She'd felt a painful, pleasure seeking rush of blood then, in her quivering, lower belly. She felt it again, now, simply reading the words.

  
"Not everyone makes love to books and words like you, Lace."

  
There was alienation in the comment; a jarring at the other name. Belle ignored both, flipping through the book she'd checked out of the Library. Landing on a passage, she read aloud, " 'The lips, tongue and genitals all have the same neural receptors, called Krause's end bulbs, which makes them ultrasensitive, highly charged. There's a similarity of response.' " (*)

  
"Ooh. ' Krause's end bulbs'. Sexy."

  
Belle sighed. Delayed gratification, indeed. She was plagued with Rumpelstiltskin's bottom lip, and a soft, wet tease of his tongue. Her mind's eye conjured the wickedness of his eyes when he showed his bottom teeth, the strange flash of gold at one tooth.

  
"You got it bad, girl." Ruby laughed.

"Don't I know it."

  
Belle felt a little as if she had a secret. Or perhaps not a secret, for Rumpelstiltskin was well aware of her association with Ruby. Yet this was separate... and it was nothing she'd known in her life, before. Without Lacey, she thought, she probably wouldn't know it, now.

  
It felt like such an indulgence, to simply lounge around Ruby's girlie apartment. Music played... the music here was different from home, and so weird. Belle attuned to it at once, having already developed tastes as Lacey.

  
Sometimes, with Rumpelstiltskin, she launched into a little shimmy of a dance. He would stare at her with obvious interest, but also as if she was visiting from another planet. Well, she was, sort of.

  
Ruby had all kinds of clothes and things with which to manipulate and decorate hair. She had make-up, so much and so dazzling with color and glitter, it made Belle dizzy. It was rich, and sometimes irritating with flowery scent.

  
Ruby regularly perused the Internet, and showed Belle the most outrageously, scandalous pictures of men... so unbelievable to Belle, she felt shockwaves accost her body. Apparently, Lacey had not been so shocked, for Ruby always laughed at Belle, looking at her curiously. "He's changed you." she said.

  
This was new, as well. An instinctive feeling of sisterhood had come over Belle.... Some little twist in the gut that not only instructed her to be loyal to Ruby, but also to herself. She shouldn't let Rumpelstiltskin change her.

  
But he hadn't, she argued against the new, inner voice of femininity. Where had it come from? He hadn't changed her; he'd only woken her. Made her aware. And after, it had been a continuous process of getting to know herself.

  
"Tell me this isn't hotter than that old man."

  
Belle hardly glanced at the man on the laptop screen. He was so beefy, he looked inflated in a balloon-like way. Nude, his heroic pose was absurd, his smile bland. Belle's eyes made a blur of the equine equipment between his legs, directed pointedly at the viewer. She really couldn't believe the image was available to one and all.

  
"Ugh."

  
This world was too much, sometimes. Well, a lot of the time. Belle found that she was able to handle Storybrooke, for the most part. Ruby's little laptop, all covered in stickers of wolves and heart-shapes, opened up a much bigger world. It was way too much. It seemed both far away and yet very present, buzzing and loud and _all of the time._ The bigger world never noticed her boundaries, and tried to wash over her.

  
"What do you mean, 'ugh'? He's fine."

  
"Ru... Mr. Gold isn't an old man."

  
"Oh, sweetie."

  
"Well, he isn't."

  
"Honey, he walks with a cane."

  
"He was _injured_."

  
"And he has gray in his hair. Bags under his eyes. He calls everyone 'dearie' in that sneery, old lady way. He carries handkerchiefs."

  
Belle's forehead creased in puzzlement. It all sounded so appealing to her, and yet Ruby spoke the words with such condemnation.

  
"Would you like him better in skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt?"

  
Ruby burst out laughing, and Belle felt a little offended on Rumpelstiltskin's behalf. But she smiled as well... it was an unlikely image of him. She added, "I could get him that t-shirt that says, 'I love you, but I've chosen rock-n-roll'. "

  
Ruby laughed again. Apparently the dressing down of Rumpelstiltskin was passable entertainment. Ruby didn't know, Belle thought. She hadn't seen him in snug leather. She was ignorant of sock suspenders and their surprising charms.

  
Calming, Ruby said, "I wish you'd go out with a younger guy, just once. Just to see what it's like to be around a cute guy whose not your daddy."

  
"He's not my _daddy_."

  
Oh... but. He actually _had_ taken over her care and feeding... the care and feeding of Belle. He had cared for her when her father had not.

  
No. He wasn't her daddy. He knew her, and he knew things about her Ruby could never know. He understood her complex relationship with words and books, and he understood her openness.... Openness to spirit. Dream. He was her friend.

  
How did Lacey do it, Belle wondered? It was many layered, her communication with Ruby, with a girlfriend.... the self-doubt and self-examination it could cause. And yet there was such a protective love, a strange loyalty it engendered, which seemed to sometimes be at odds with the love she felt for Rumpelstiltskin.

  
There was already the complication of Belle and Lacey. In addition, the was a quiet knowledge of a Goblin Queen, a mother of spirit babies... a witch. Now there was the woman Belle was with Rumpelstiltskin, and the woman; the girl, really; she was with Ruby. Her identity was so muddled, there really was no need for Regina and her borrowed curse.

  
Rumpelstiltskin's damn curse.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
It was different with Mary Margaret. Belle found herself studying the small, pixie-like woman... _This is Snow White_ , she often reminded herself. The woman at the heart of Regina's ire, and the ousted princess who had roamed the Enchanted Forest as an outlaw. She'd had a gang. Marauding dwarfs.

  
It didn't seem possible. It seemed to Belle that Mary Margaret couldn't be much older than herself, but there was a world of difference between the Lacey/Ruby duo and the studious calm of Mary Margaret.

  
Maybe it was work, Belle surmised.Mary Margaret was a teacher; she served a purpose. Belle had come to realize that both she and Ruby were adrift. Ruby worked at Granny's, but - like Belle - she was aimless. They both had little ambition, and neither was fit for any particular career. It gnawed at Belle... she wanted to do _something_. And she hated it that people in Storybrooke thought she was with Rumpelstiltskin for his money.

  
Cleaning out mews at bird rehab was kind of a big job, and she often shared it with Mary Margaret. She wished she could do _this_ for a living, rather than as a volunteer... Although Rumpelstiltskin grumbled about the odd, _off_ stink of bird poop. But Belle loved the birds and felt so attuned to them, to their ways. It irritated her when others made direct eye contact with the juvenile eagles, which she knew they hated, interpreting as a threat. Or when someone caged a screech owl for the night, but left the round opening of another owl cage within its sight. They were obsessive little things... Belle knew the owl would fret all night about the opening, and what might pop out of it.

  
_My_ birds, she found herself thinking. Just leave them to me. But, no. They weren't hers. And it wasn't a true job... only the veterinarians and biologists were paid staff.

  
On a little tea break with Mary Margaret, Belle decided to bring up something she wouldn't dare bring up to Ruby. It was... sensitive.

  
Hesitant, she asked, "Mary Margaret, do you know much about men?"

  
Mary Margaret's smile was indulgent, maternal. Sometimes it bothered Belle.

  
"I'm not an expert. But I guess I know a little. What's on your mind?"

  
Er. How to say it? "Can I ask a... sex question?"

  
"Oh, dear."

  
Deflated, Belle said, "Never mind."

  
"Oh, no. It's just... well, it's been awhile. But I have a vague recollection of men and sex. What's your question?"

  
"Well. Is it normal to be... quick?"

  
"Quick?"

  
"I mean, for it to be over quickly?"

  
"You mean... sex? Like, the event, itself?"

  
"Yes." Gods. Belle wanted to take it back. She should have stopped at "never mind".

  
"Is this about Mr. Gold, honey?"

  
Belle bristled inside. _You're not my mother_ , she thought in an unkind way. But she liked Mary Margaret... it might have been Rumpelstiltskin's influence that ruffled her, which brought back Ruby's admonishment that he was changing her. Lord.

  
"It's more of a general question." Belle said.

  
"I see. I don't mean to pry. But sometimes age, or things related to age can be a factor."

  
He's not _old_ , Belle thought. She suppressed a small snarl.

  
"But, truth be told, Belle, _yes_ , it can be quick. At any age. Men are pretty much known for it. You know... wham bam, thank you, ma'am."

  
Oh. This was disappointing news. Mary Margaret's expression registered Belle's fallen face. She added, " It can be worked on, though. A little practice, between couples. Men can learn a little... restraint. There are books... like, how-to, self-help books."

  
Nodding, Belle said, "Okay. But it was just a general question. Like I said."

  
"Well, the books are for the general, adult population."

  
"Okay."  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"Do you think Ru... Mr. Gold would like this?" Belle asked Ruby.

  
She held up one of Ruby's fashion catalogs, showing a photograph of a woman gussied up in lingerie. It was a pointless look in matters of practicality, but Belle recognized the sex-stance of it. Also, she thought many of the pieces were in her stash of Lacey lingerie.

  
"Are you kidding? He'd cream his custom tailored pants."

  
Belle wrinkled her nose. Of course, delay was the ultimate goal. Perhaps this wasn't the best route.

  
"Just be careful not to give him a heart attack."

  
"Oh, Ruby."

  
"Oh, Lace."

  
Belle closed her eyes. For a moment, she conjured her demon lover. He'd taken her on every surface in the Dark Castle.... he laid her out on tables and bent her over on stairs, fingers digging into her hip. He drank her blood. His hands, his bottom lip; as said her book; were the height of voluptuousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*) A Natural History Of The Senses, by Diane Ackerman


	8. The Dark One  (... likes T&A)

... How the hell did the thing attach to the thing...?

  
Belle stood in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom... It was the very same mirror from her room in the Dark Castle, with its dark-wood frame and age-darkened glass.

  
She felt ridiculous. _This_ was ridiculous. How did anyone take this crap seriously? So much of Lacey's underwear was black, and - like her name - was made of lace. Belle stood before her mirror in scraps of transparent, lacy black, trying to hook a garter belt to the lacy top of her black stockings. Her difficulty was exacerbated by the fact that she wore absurd, insane high heels. Bum and bosom were shoved out from the forward thrust of the shoes, and she teetered like a colt, rocking on tippy-toes.

  
"This is stupid." she muttered.

  
What was the point of a thong? What possible usefulness could it offer to a woman's body? The shoes made both arse and breasts jiggle... her breasts nearly jiggled out of the abbreviated cups of her bra, which clearly wasn't made with support in mind. The stockings seemed too slippery for the hook and eye capture of the garter strap.

  
The woman in the photograph had looked long and sleek, cool, and sinuously sexy. Goddess-like, really, even if her outfit was stupid.

  
Belle felt hot and unhappy, red faced and irritated. She felt swollen and puffy about the belly and hips, and wondered if her moon blood was coming. ("Period", they called it here. As if it was final.)

  
More from irritation, frustration... than from any sense of arousal, she felt as if she was already damp at the crotch. The stupid thong. It pressed into her intimate parts, and the heat of her struggle brought on a cumbersome wetness. Or maybe it was another sign of the impending time of the month.

  
She gave up on the garter strap and let it hang, useless, from her hip. The whole outfit was useless. The garter belt was hardly necessary, as the stretchy, lace hem of the stockings squeezed to her thighs like sausage casings. She lifted her hair from her neck and fanned with her hand. She tried to imagine tottering about, body a-jiggle for Rumpelstiltskin's viewing pleasure, and was dismayed by the image that came to mind. Her legs felt prickly where she'd shaved them, only to rub them raw with the stockings; and... for crying out loud... little strands of pubic hair were sticking out of the thong in a way that was not at all in keeping with the photograph. Now she understood why Lacey had shaved herself bare; it had been such a startling discovery when she'd come back to herself.

  
She stomped one, heeled foot, and it nearly knocked her over.

  
"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."

  
"Goodness."

  
Belle turned to see Rumpelstiltskin, framed in her doorway. His deep eyes -amused?- roamed over her body in a slow, almost sleepy way. She swayed on her compromised feet, fighting a desire to cover various parts of herself... especially her crotch. The thong made the existence of her pubic hair seem all wrong. She felt ungainly and full of heft.

  
"Language, dearie."

  
"Oh, Rumpel. I'm embarrassed. I was trying to be... sexy." Belle felt morose.

  
"You're always sexy, Belle. And... _this_ is very interesting."

  
"It's not how I'd pictured."

  
Rumpelstiltskin crossed the room, and Belle felt as if a wave of heat was pushed before him. She teetered from the impact of the invisible push, and Rumpelstiltskin steadied her, holding her upper arms.

  
"Did you think you needed to do something to get my attention, dearie?"

  
"Oh. You don't like it."

  
"On the contrary. It's quite fetching." he smiled; he showed his bottom teeth. It sent a quiver down Belle's insides, and the press of the stupid thong against her overheated flesh became even more intrusive.

  
"Sexy, yes. Also.... dirty."

  
"Dirty?"

  
He gave a quick raise of his brow, a tilt of his head. Belle felt examined, and blushed as his fingers gave a light tug to her escaped pubic hair. "That's not meant to be there." she muttered.

  
"Where on earth else would it be, dearie? Turn around."

  
She looked at him in question, and he prodded her, hands turning her body at her shoulders.

  
"Oh... gracious."

  
Fingertips, light as feathers, followed the trail of Belle's spine. She looked down, her hair falling forward. She felt something of a swoon, engulfed in her own, fretful heat, and the more sultry heat that came from Rumpelstiltskin.

  
"You're walking better." she observed.

  
"Mm. A little witch has been working spells on me."

  
"Oh, it's not witchery, Rumpel."

  
"So you say."

  
His fingers raked lightly at the under-curve of her bum, the backs of her thighs. Belle felt an answering throb between her legs, then gasped to feel him grab two handfuls of her bum. He squeezed hard, lifting flesh. He let go, and Belle blushed again to feel the bounce and jiggle.

  
"I'm going to eat you up, love. They'll come looking for us when it's determined we've gone missing. They'll have to peel me from your body."

  
Belle looked over her shoulder. He met her silent query with a curt nod; yes, all true, the nod said. He took off his jacket and began undoing buttons at his collar and wrists. Belle turned to face him again, unsteady in the high heels.

  
"I'm as tall as you." she said.

  
"Indeed."

  
"It's strange, isn't it?"

  
"I can adapt."

  
He rolled up the sleeves of his crisp, pale grey shirt. His waistcoat and tie were gone, his shirt undone to show a V of flesh to his sternum. Belle wanted to place her mouth there, to feel his warmth and taste him.

  
"What are you thinking?" she asked, curious.

  
"Truly?"

  
"I mean, in particular."

  
"Particularly, I was thinking of fucking you."

  
... Another quiver, slow and hurtful. "How?"

  
He gave a considering look. It was interesting to Belle to see so much humor in his eyes, alongside lust, sexuality. He said, " We've been through this before, love." He poked the forefinger of one hand through a circle of finger and thumb on the other. "The cock generally goes in the pussy. Though I suppose we could discuss other options." _Leer._

  
Belle couldn't quite suppress a little quirk of irritation. "So... I go to all of this trouble, make a spectacle of myself. I try to walk in _these_. And you're just going to stick it in me?" As an afterthought, she added, "Wham bam, thank you, ma'am?"

  
His hands fell to his sides, obscene gesture abandoned. "I'm sorry, dearie. I was under the impression you wished to be... _stuck_. If not, I must confess, I don't understand what you're doing."

  
With a sigh, Belle rubbed her palms against her sides. She blew out her breath. Perhaps she was a little confused.

  
"I do want... you know." she said. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I just wanted to be so sexy... some elevated, almost untouchable sort of sexy. I feel like a heifer."

  
Rumpelstiltskin approached her again, and Belle couldn't help but notice that his limp really was minimized. She silently vowed to keep working on his leg, even when she felt vexed and fussy.

  
He pressed his lips softly to hers, the placed light, baby kisses along her jaw, over her face. How odd to be level with him. He seemed to purr as he kissed her, and Belle felt some of her angst begin to fade. She felt herself going liquid, the thong more useless than ever. His fingers were in a light skim, up and down her arms, her sides. She erupted in gooseflesh, a force of cold, making a shocking path through heat.

  
"You're unspeakably sexy, dearie..." _kiss_. "But if you become untouchable," _kiss_ , "then I can't," _kiss_ , "touch you. And I must," _kiss_ , "touch you."

  
Belle thought she wouldn't be able to stand much longer; on her toes, it seemed. She was becoming boneless, her legs weakening. Rumpelstiltskin's hand, the backs of his fingers stroked up her middle, between her breasts. As he kissed her mouth, his hand closed warmly over her throat.

  
She felt the change... it had happened before. There was a _shift_ , a feeling within herself, like a click, a piece slid into place. There were so many of her, now; she would never keep up. Whoever this Belle was, the Belle who was so relieved to feel Rumpelstiltskin handle her this way; she was a Belle Ruby would never know or understand. No one would, but for Rumpelstiltskin.

  
His tongue teased her, fluttering. His fingers and thumb were a soft caress at her jaw, but his hold was firm.

  
"Your blood is coming." he murmured.

  
Belle's eyelashes fluttered, and she said, "... Because I'm acting crazy?"

  
She felt him smile against her lips. "No, dearie. I can smell it."

  
"Ew. Really? I thought all of that was a part of the Dark One."

  
He pulled away from the kiss, and stared at her with eyes gone impossibly dark. They moved over her face, his bottom lip a pout, begging to be suckled. Belle felt her breath catch, her legs wobble.

  
"I _am_ the Dark One, Belle. I can't access the power in this world... it lies dormant. But I'm the demon, it is me, same as always. So it will be until I'm dead."

  
Belle wondered just how bad a person she was, that she trembled with want to hear his words. He saw it. Belle saw his eyes catch her out, the blaze that flared within her to feel the presence of the Dark One slip in, show itself. The recognition was an answering flare in his eyes.

  
"Is that what you want, dearie? Your monster?"

  
"All of you, Rumpel."

  
"Man and monster."

  
Her eyes were weighted, her parted lips begged for succor. Krause's end bulbs, she thought, annoyed with herself for thinking it. Her racing mind. The receptors were firing... at lips, tongue, sex...

  
"Do you still want my blood?" She asked, "In this form?"

  
His chest rose and fell. He nodded, and kissed her again. Belle didn't know if she could handle that... a reenactment of his literal bloodlust. But she wasn't yet bleeding... it teased him. Toyed with him.

  
The hand at her throat tightened its hold, and his other hand moved between her legs. His breath hissed in through his teeth. "You've soaked this little nothing through, dearie."

  
His fingers toyed over cloth and flesh, spreading wetness. He slid a finger under the thong, slipping it easily inside of her. Belle moaned, her hips tilted back, her opening sensitive. Her stance felt awkward, but he held her in place by her neck, his tongue hot in her mouth. Belle felt herself flutter, spasm around his finger, and he moaned as well. Taking it from her, he brought his finger to his mouth and sucked it. Brow tensed, he sucked deeply, hollowing his cheeks. When he opened his eyes, he looked far away. Drunk.

  
"Come here, Belle."

  
Rumpelstiltskin led her to the bed. It seemed as if the room had darkened. Belle didn't know if the sun dropped, if a storm came... Had her vision simply darkened with her _shift_? The bedroom had always seemed to have a touch of bordello... all of the colors were rose and mauve, wine and dark wood. The rich, sensual trappings took on a somewhat sinister aspect, and Belle wondered if Rumpelstiltskin has always had a thought for her blood. He cocooned her in shades of red. A garland of red and pink roses, made of delicate silk, wound around the black-iron stand of a tall lamp. Its shade was ruby red.

  
He directed her onto her hands and knees, keeping her legs wide apart. Belle let her head sink down to the soft coverlet of autumn leaves on a deep, garnet ground. Rumpelstiltskin stroked her back, coaxing her to dip deeply at its small. She knew this position... she was utterly exposed, open to him.

  
She wore the silly thong, but Rumpelstiltskin's fingers touched her, showing her just how useless it was. His fingers ghosted over the hot pout of her vulva, feathered over wet labia. Then it was his tongue, and Belle jumped a little at the contact. His fluttering touch; wet, soft and teasing; brushed against her exposed flesh. He pressed a kiss to the throb of her clitoris, hidden beneath lacy cloth. He bit a fleshy mound of bum, then her inner thigh. His teeth marked her.

  
"Gods, Belle." he murmured.

  
The contact was gone. Belle pushed up on her arms and looked back to see him undressing. His leather belt fell heavily to the floor... he toed his shoes. With a smile, Belle asked, "Will you leave on the socks and garters?"

  
He smacked her arse, a resounding slap, and she yelped.

  
"I will if it pleases you, dearie."

  
In a weird way, it did.

  
Rumpelstiltskin said, " I'm not certain what sort of untouchable perfection you were seeking, Belle, but this is better. So much better. I don't need you perfect and prettied up in bed, dearie. I need you raw. I need you messy."

  
With a low growl, he was crouched behind her, tongue laving. The thong was pushed rudely aside, where it tore. Rumpelstiltskin finished the job, pulling the fabric from her body to fall aside. Belle felt him open her... fingers splayed over her bum, thumbs at her slick opening... he opened her and plunged his tongue inside, thrusting with it.

  
He head went back down to the bed, arms useless. Her eyes closed, and she cried out as she felt herself spasm, deep inside. She dripped for him, she knew, and it seemed as if he was feeding himself as much as he was teasing, pleasuring her. Every so often he slapped her, and Belle felt the pain as keening, brutal pleasure.

  
It seemed to go on and on... Unable to stop herself, Belle moved her hand between her legs to work her clitoris. The movement made Rumpelstiltskin moan, his hands grasping at her hips. He met her fingers with his tongue, flicking softly over both fingers and the hot, little bud, and Belle felt a whine in her throat. A hot surge in her belly and sex... She wanted him everywhere. She was bereft that his tongue wasn't inside her, but his lips felt so good, so _wicked_ suckling her. Her mouth hungered for him, her breasts ached, wanting his hands and mouth.

  
Ruby was crazy, she thought, to think that anyone else could begin to know her... could begin even to scratch the surface, much less claim her... As Rumpelstiltskin had claimed her. His tongue thrust inside of her again, such a soft tease at her opening, yet muscled where her insides quivered. He pulled out, lapping at her, guttural sounds in his throat.

  
"Rumpel..." Belle murmured. She couldn't take much more. She would begin to weep, too much roiling within.

  
"Mmmm..."

  
"Rumpel, please..."

  
He gave the little bud a kiss, then stood. Belle felt him put one foot on the bed, and nearly giggled to feel the fabric of his sock; the elastic of the garter. Hysteria might be setting in. A snort escaped, and it earned her a slap. Her flesh burned and jiggled.

  
"I only did as you wished, love." Rumpelstiltskin's voice sounded rather entertained.

  
"I know." another snort, more successfully repressed.

  
Then Belle moaned, a low, animal sound, to feel him push slowly inside of her. Her hands kneaded the bedclothes, her eyes squeezed shut.

  
"Ohhh... _fuck_." Rumpelstiltskin breathed, going still. "Belle... tell me you want me."

  
"I want you." she whispered.

  
"Tell me you want my cock."

  
"I do. I want it."

  
He breathed in, his body remaining still. "Your pussy squeezes me when you say it... when I speak. You're so tight, dearie... so wet."

  
Belle made a helpless sound, then cried out as he thrust. He filled her, so... he held her hips and slammed into her, his balls slapping against her aching bud. Her body was jolted and jarred, bones loosening even as her muscles tensed and hummed. Her breasts jumped out of the little half-cups of her bra and bounced, almost painfully, beneath her.

  
His scent, washing over her, was changing. The warm, comforting things she'd scented in the weave of his clothes,... coffee, tobacco, smoke... they were growing hotter. Amber vanilla and musk. Heat flared alarmingly along her spine, at the small of her back. It traced lines in her palms and the soles of her feet, so that she flexed and tried to ease the overload of pleasure... the feeling of coming apart.

  
Rumpelstiltskin's scent became scorched. Burned sugar; crackling flames and burning resin. The heat of his body stole over her, intoxicating. Narcotic.

  
She heard the effort of his breath, and felt - every so often - how he came to a complete stop. Making it up to her, he'd said... trying to make it last. But Belle thought she should be careful what she wished for; she was going to go mad.

  
In a still moment, he stroked her back, blowing cool air onto her burning skin. He reached over her, fisting his hand in her hair and pulling gently, until she was back up on her hands. She felt him clamber up onto the bed so that he was fully over her... the touch of his skin against her back, her legs, woke more receptors of some sort, she was certain. His mouth came to her shoulder, her neck, and his movement inside of her began again.

  
It was slower. His thrust felt languid and sensual, and Belle felt her molten squeeze around him. She turned her head to meet his mouth... his kisses were sweet on her face, his tongue nimble against hers. His hand came to feel her breasts, to hold one, squeezing reflexively.

  
"You're so beautiful." he said, softly, lips brushing against her ear. "It's a mystery to me that you don't seem to know it."

  
Belle breathed through her open mouth, all but panting. What did she care about beauty? It was _this_... connection, this melding into another, so like and yet unlike herself.... that she cared about. She'd thought him beautiful in the Dark Castle, and still thought so.

  
He pressed her down to the bed, so that he lay over her. Belle flexed her hips back to him, her breath catching as his hand moved beneath her, fingers finding the engorged, aching nub of her clitoris. He played it, his face pressed to her neck and his hips in a fast, hard thrust once more.

  
" _Fuck_!" he cried against her, and his urgency, his need stoked all of the ways her body was manipulated and worked. Belle felt herself drawn tight. It was a feeling she knew; she'd come to trust it, but it still held a premonition of darkness. A feeling of hovering over a great, black unknown. An ocean of stars that waited to be birthed, a sky of wings that beat unto bloodied, liquid rapture.

  
He said it again, softer, _"Fuck_!" Then, " _Oh, Belle... I'm coming. I'm coming_!"

  
Everything, the pent up madness, burst. Belle heard herself cry out, loudly, harsh. Her hips spasmed to Rumpelstiltskin's as her insides convulsed. It felt that she was drawn up to a fever pitch, then was set... no, _thrown_ , _hurtled_.... adrift. A scream, a howl; and then swooning, dreaming buoyancy.... for a moment she was far from Rumpelstiltskin, in places she'd only known in the Deadlands.

  
Then she was with him. He covered her, he was inside of her. They breathed together, each changing the other in subtle ways. Scent and breath mingled, and Belle felt all of her selves gather, huddle. All looked to this man who was also a demon, and felt it as his seed melted into her heat.

 

 

 


	9. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Erel; it's a little touch and go, but I think it can be managed on the train. :)

Belle liked wearing Rumpelstiltskin's clothes. He called her a cross-dresser, playing; but really, it was just the scent, the feel that she craved.

  
As he dozed, splayed on his belly, she stripped off the irritation of lingerie, all of those straps and hooks and elasticised things. Most of all, and with immense gratification, she took off the bloody shoes and the abrasion of the stockings.

  
She kept a place for all of it, as it had turned out that the seemingly useless bits of fabric had served a purpose, after all. But, _ugh_. She was over it for the moment, wanting only comfort.

  
Rumpelstiltskin's grey shirt was soft on her skin, and smelled of his pipe. (It was one of Ruby's assertions of enfeebled, old age. "Who smokes a pipe?") The smoke of his tobacco was sweet, almost cloyingly so, but pleasant to Belle. At his collar was an earthy, grassy muskiness. She felt mellow and calmly wakeful beneath the fabric.

  
Thus attired, she propped up on the bed, beside Rumpelstiltskin, and felt her chest swell, near to bursting. She thought it was possible she might actually jump up and down and cheer, _hooray_! Stand on the bed and bounce.

  
_Look at him_. _Oh_. This voluptuous expanse of exposed flesh as he slept, unmindful of conscious thoughts of dignity, of his insecurities. Belle gloated. She sat upright, cross-legged, and stared as if drinking him down in a long, endless, thirsty gulp. He spilled over her. She smiled broadly. Gods, his butt was _cute_.

  
Were she not so respectful of his privacy, his persona in Storybrooke, she would take a picture. Just to show Ruby. For the most part she didn't care what anyone thought or felt about her choice of partner.... if she hadn't cared in the Dark Castle, she certainly didn't care in Storybrooke.

  
The new association with Ruby tripped her up, though. Perhaps because Ruby dismissed the very idea idea of him as a man, a lover, Belle sometimes felt a need to validate him. Here, she could say. _Look_. It probably wouldn't matter, though. Compared to Ruby's tastes, he was a slight man. And he _did_ show signs of age... it just happened that Belle found those things unbearably attractive.

  
Her smile threatened to become a laugh as she soaked in the full picture... one knee akimbo, arms hugging a pillow... and the dark socks and garters. The last touch made him a bit comical to behold, and yet...

  
What _was_ it? Was it a kink? A twist of psyche? Though Belle saw the humor of the weird accent on her otherwise naked lover, she also felt a sense of... wickedness? It flowered, the wickedness, opening darkly in her belly. An uncurling tendril, vine-like, spread through her limbs. There was an element of the over-the-top, rakehell man he'd once been, and an element that was _dirty_. As he'd said of her unsteady, jiggling, near naked presentation.

  
The dirtiness got under her skin, infected her. She wanted to roll him over and take him in her mouth. She also wanted only to look at him, feeling the calm of the room, of his breath.

  
She wanted to bite his arse.

  
She payed with his hair... it was different in this world, as the rest of him was. No longer a mass of waves and curls, it fell in soft, too-long feathers. It was more brown than copper, a rich walnut, shot through with silvery-grey. As in the Dark Castle, his sideburns were entirely silver.

  
There were dimples at either side of his tailbone, and Belle could not remember seeing them on his copper-green backside. He'd had patches of rough, raised skin, then; especially along his spine. She supposed it could have obscured the dimpling. She stared, still overtaken with an inexplicable desire to _bite_... to fondle and squeeze, as if kneading bread. Where on earth did such impulses come from? The dimples seemed another element of _cute_ , accenting the sweet rounding of his bum.... she was certain her back had no such dimpling.

  
Lightly, she stroked his back. It changed the steady rhythm of his breath.... sometimes he inhaled sharply, or gave a long, contented sigh.

  
"Are you awake, Rumpel?"

  
"Mmm."

  
"I'm admiring your bum."

  
"Indeed?"

  
She caressed over it with her fingertips, smiling as a big muscle clenched and unclenched.

  
"Gluteus minimus." he murmured.

  
Belle laughed. "I don't know about that." She gave him a slap. It was true that he didn't really jiggle, but she thought she could grab a handful.

  
"You always resort to violence, dearie."

  
She heard his smile, and didn't bother to answer. She gave him another slap, followed by a kneading fondle, and was gratified to see a subtle grind of his hips.

  
"And you _hate_ violence." she said.

  
"Abhor it."

  
The wicked tendril uncoiled another length within her, and she let her fingers spider-walk between his legs. She tickled against his balls, and his hips lifted, just a little.

  
"Naughty. What are you thinking, dearie? Manhandling me, playing with me nethers."

  
Belle smiled, continuing to play. His skin goose-bumped at her lightest touch... his hips flexed when she made a firm grab at his bum. The vine inside of her grew more aggressive, bore silvery-dark fruit; a witch's garden. She teased him, tasting her own lust when his whole body moved into a squirm... his shoulders rolled as he turned his head to face her, pressing into the pillow he held. His spine twisted, hips shifting as he changed the position of his legs, the outward knee facing her. She watched the muscles of his bum and thighs as he made a subtle pumping against the bed.

  
"You're such a bad girl, Belle. I wonder what the devil I'll do with you."

  
"I suppose, at some point, you'll have to punish me."

  
"I fear it may come to that."

  
She slapped him, close to where bum met thigh, and was arrested to hear him moan. His eyes were closed, eyelashes casting dark shadows on his cheek. His mouth was open; he relished her touch, he waited for it. When she didn't continue, wrapped up in observing him, he slit his eyes open and gave her a look over his shoulder, brows raised. The look was both questioning and insinuating, and Belle felt as if it was a mark of the man he was in Storybrooke.

  
Playful, she said, "Yes? Are you waiting for something, Rumpel?"

  
With a sigh, he closed his eyes. "Bitch."

  
"Oh, _ho_."

  
He smiled against the pillow, but Belle made him wait. Such obvious baiting, the scoundrel. When she felt the prickly anticipation of his skin, a feverishly ticklish energy reaching up to her, she gave him another slap. He moaned, prettily.

  
"Bad dog." she said.


	10. Missile

A child careened out of nowhere, seemingly launched, and in a hurtling blur it attached itself to Rumpelstiltskin's leg.

  
Belle gave a yelp, startled, then steadied Rumpelstiltskin as he wavered a bit. The child wasn't much more than a toddler, and looked up the captured leg with a juice-stained grin. It appeared Rumpelstiltskin was offended by this development, and he stared down his long, narrow nose at the child who clung to him. Leaning on his cane, he scooted his leg out a bit, which the child interpreted as a joyride upon his foot. He let out a trilling, bubbling laugh, and Rumpelstiltskin looked at Belle, brow creased.

  
"What is it?" he asked her.

  
Belle was beginning to laugh, herself. The child, monkey-like, was clearly delighted with his prey.

  
"He's a child, Rumpel. I know you're familiar with such."

  
"Why is it adhered to my leg?"

  
"Dunno. Why don't you ask him?"

  
His expression showed grave doubt. However, he once again looked sternly down his nose. He said, "Who do you belong to, and why are you accosting me?"

  
Well. It was the funniest thing the child had ever heard. He broke apart with high-pitched laughter, causing Rumpelstiltskin to look at Belle in accusation. She shrugged. The child held even tighter, and Rumpelstiltskin began to walk, an awkward shuffle, dragging the child with him.

  
Hurrying alongside, looking about, Belle said, "Rumpel... I'm sure he's _someone's_ child. We should stay put. His mother is sure to appear."

  
Grumbling, Rumpelstiltskin said, "Can't bloody walk down the sidewalk without kamikaze homunculi being fired from sniper cannons."

  
"Oh... yes. The world, today. One can hardly breathe for the air traffic of flung children."

  
The child continued to giggle, enjoying the swing of the leg he rode.

  
"Its so simpleminded." Rumpelstiltskin complained.

  
" _He's_ not an it, Rumpel."

  
Rumpelstiltskin's expression clearly conveyed that he questioned her intelligence and judgment. " _Look_ at it." he indicated with his hand.

  
Belle was on the verge of noting that Rumpelstiltskin had one of these specimens of his own. That, in fact, his child was the reason Storybrooke existed at all. The words brewed in her mind, but were thought better of. As she considered her choice of words, the sound of a woman's shriek made her, and Rumpelstiltskin, stop in their tracks.

  
" _Go! Go! Vrooom!"_ said the child.

  
"It _speaks_." said Rumpelstiltskin, who seemed moderately horrified by the revelation.

  
Turning, Belle saw a woman's hightailed approach, a blonde-ish blur of utter, purse-flinging panic.

  
" _Sorry! Sorry! Sorry_!" she was all but yelling.

  
Rumpelstiltskin turned his look of offense and disdain upon her as she leveled with himself and Belle. Holding forth his foot, he said, " I take it this belongs to you, madam."

  
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Gold! He got away from me at the pharmacy.... I swear, I just looked away for a moment. He doesn't mean anything by it. Come on, Brandon. Let go of Mr. Gold." She looked to be on the wide-eyed, verge of tears.

  
Belle looked from the woman to Rumpelstiltskin in wonder. The woman was terrified of him! Why, Belle wondered? He looked normal, like everyone else. He didn't wield magic or make people explode or anything... The snail population seemed to be in check...

  
On the other hand, the child had decided to never let go. He would man his Rumpelstiltskin post until the end of days. " _Noooooo...._ " he howled, as his mother tried to detach him without the awkward, forced intimacy of actually touching Rumpelstiltskin.  
Belle felt amazed. The woman's fear for her child, her obvious discomfort of Rumpelstiltskin's presence was palpable. What on earth did she think he would _do_?

  
"Let me help." Belle said, kneeling. She made a silly, big-eyed face at the boy, and it seemed to distract him a little from the leg he adored. People gathered. Belle looked around at the various faces, amused or concerned, that witnessed two women kneeling at Rumpelstiltskin's feet. Rumpelstiltskin, himself, sighed and looked heavenward in consternation.

  
Reason was out of the question. Belle went for full-on redirection and sleight of hand. Making goofy faces and voices, luring the boy's giggling attention, she detached his hands and legs long enough for his mother to scoop him up.

  
" _Brandon_!" his mother nearly wept, once he was safe in her arms. Standing, Belle once more felt amazed.

  
"I'm so sorry!" the woman repeated. Rumpelstiltskin waved her away, impatiently, with his cane.

  
" _Noooooo!!!_ " Brandon protested afresh, producing a little sob now that his favorite leg was taken from his possession. Belle heard him, like a fading siren, as his mother scurried away.

  
Belle stared after them, and then at the slowly dispersing crowd. What had just happened?

  
It seemed Rumpelstiltskin truly didn't mind the fact that, evidently, he inspired terror. In fact, it appeared to please him. He flashed his gold tooth at the crowd in an unpleasant snarl, waving them off with his cane, as he had the woman.

  
"Another child saved from the cook-pot," he said, mildly." The parents of Storybrooke can sleep another night."

  
Well, of course he was joking, in a mean sort of way. Ruby was in the crowd, and gave a little _oh no he didn't_ look to Belle as she departed. Taking Rumpelstiltskin's free arm, Belle eased back into the progression of the morning. Her step fell in with his... he seemed as if every thought had been up-ended and would not fall back into place.

  
"Why are those people so afraid of you?" she asked.

  
He gave her the look again; the one that questioned her intelligence. "Perhaps because I'm the Dark One, dearie."

  
"But they don't know that."

  
He shrugged, a frown dimpling his chin.

  
"They think you're one of them." Belle continued. The very words made him snarl in disgust. "They have no reason to _fear for their children_. For goodness sake."

  
"Oh. For _goodness_ sake." Rumpelstiltskin smiled, his gaze far off.

  
"Truly, Rumpel. Why was she so scared?"

  
"Twuly?"

"Tell me."

  
He gave another shrug, then - the nerve - he showed _her_ the gold tooth. Belle was not just a little put out.

  
"I'm not a nice man, dearie. With no power, I've had to find other ways to put people in place when they cross me. You can't go letting people find your weaknesses, Belle. They run amok all over you, if they think they can get away with it. Cheating on rent. Hurtling children."

  
"Rumpel, that's crazy."

  
He didn't respond, walking in silence. It felt so strange to Belle to feel both comfortable, so secure on his arm, and to yet be filled with questions. Uncertainty. After a moment, looking straight ahead, Rumpelstiltskin said, " I suppose I deserve a spanking."

  
" _Pft_. You wish."

  
He turned wide eyes on her, and Belle felt a blush rise to her cheeks. It had just flown from her mouth.

  
"You sounded so much like Lacey." Rumpelstiltskin said.

  
"I know." Belle admitted.


	11. Dancing Queen

Belle had read "The Secret Life of Bees", and, of course, she loved bees. In this new world, the bees had to be saved. Maybe Rumpelstiltskin was right about people running amok... too many people, not enough snails.

  
What she felt she was experiencing in her own life was The Secret Life of Girls. Or, perhaps not secret. But the feeling of separation, of _other_ persisted. The part of herself that was so strongly informed by Lacey was a part that often seemed completely independent of Rumpelstiltskin. It was so different from the way she'd felt in the Dark Castle.

  
She didn't have Lacey's taste for liquor... sometimes she would have a sip of whatever spirits Rumpelstiltskin took, mostly because the association of scent comforted her. The burn in her throat and a soft explosion in her belly pleased and interested her, but she couldn't say she actually liked the taste.

  
She liked the heat, the taste of it on Rumpelstiltskin's tongue. It was one of a series of things, scents, that she'd collected and cataloged, that made a spell of Rumpelstiltskin.

  
Even without an interest in drinking, she often accompanied Ruby to The Rabbit Hole. It wasn't exactly a secret, but neither did she feel inclined to chatter on about it to Rumpelstiltskin. It was just something to do with Ruby, who was partial to very sweet, mixed drinks and smoky-eyed flirtation. Belle felt a little spike of embarrassment when she conjured memories of Lacey in The Rabbit Hole. She hoped people would forget. She was no longer the heavily made-up girl in scant clothing who bent over pool tables. Why, she wondered, didn't people credit Rumpelstiltskin with the rehabilitation of Lacey? Ruby accused her of letting him change her; Regina mocked him for having a pseudo-fatherly influence on the wayward Lacey; yet no one seemed to credit his influence in a positive way. It bothered Belle, who was always being told how much healthier she seemed. Having woken to herself, she was stuck living down the life and times of Lacey. As was Rumpelstiltskin.

  
Some of Lacey's life had been interesting, though. Parts of it appealed to Belle, and one of those parts was the way it felt to dance at The Rabbit Hole. She didn't much care about the pool table, nor did she take Ruby's bait when it came to flirting with strange men. But the feeling of dancing in near-darkness to music that was so alien, so loud - she felt it in her her blood - was something she loved.

  
A touch mortified, yet intrigued, she realized that it brought her to a similar place as climax. Her body didn't feel those sensations, the release... but the feeling of briefly leaving her body was strong. She often closed her eyes while dancing, and it seemed as if she could _feel_ the music. It buffeted her body, it made colors and patterns in her mind. She swayed and flung her hair about; she raised her arms and stomped her feet. And, for a time, she wasn't Belle _or_ Lacey. She was hollow, a ghost, and she was filled with a vibration of sound that moved, like a big, dark cat... a leopard through darkness. It moved like the ocean.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Ruby looked up from her drink, deflated to see Mr. Gold standing next to her bar-stool. Well, crap. That ought to curtail the evening. Unless... Was it possible he was about to say, "Yo, pretty ladies"...?

  
Nope. He stared fixedly at Lacey, the freak. Ruby couldn't quite put her finger on why his stare seemed more perverted when Lacey was in her jeans, silly t-shirts and sneakers than when she wore tiny dresses. It did, though. Yeesh. She felt a little ill, protectiveness over Lacey cutting through the pleasant buzz she'd achieved.

  
"Uh-oh." she said, aloud. "Daddy's home."

  
Gold looked at her with obvious distaste. Nothing new. She supposed if she touched him, he might have to wipe her germs off with one of his old-lady hankies.

  
"What is this?" he rather _growled_ , indicating the whirling dervish that was Lacey. People made space around her... she was in her own little, circle of sound.

  
The growl was unsettling. It made Ruby feel an answering growl in her own chest, which was also unsettling.

  
"Um. Dancing?" Duh. How old was this guy?

  
The bartender, a cutie-pie named Troy, approached, leaning on the bar. He indicated Ruby's near empty glass, and she gave a little nod. Talk-shouting at Gold, he nodded to the dance floor and said, "She's something, huh? That's our Lacey."

  
Not looking away from Lacey, stick shoved firmly up ass, Gold said, "Certainly not."

  
Not _theirs_ , Ruby surmised. Rolling her eyes, she said, "Oh come, Mr. Gold. She's the belle of the ball."

  
It startled her, the way his head seemed to swivel in her direction, like something out of The Exorcist. Or like one of Lacey's freaky-eyed owls. The look he gave her was so sharp, she drew back. Her Spidey senses tingled.

  
"Geez, it's just dancing." she muttered.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Rumpelstiltskin had never seen anything like it. He stared at Belle, and felt all of the things he always felt for her. He also felt that he wanted, _needed_ to possess her. The feeling hurt his heart, as she often did. It squeezed in on itself, as if in a vice. Or, closer to home, a fist.

  
Those people who moved near her, around her; they knew nothing. These people with their drinks and costumed pretense and glamours... They were apart from her, they couldn't touch her. She was his.

  
... However, he found that he was feeling a little afraid of Belle. He'd sometimes felt that way with Lacey, and had resented her for it. Now, with Belle.... he felt mystified. She moved inside of sound, and the sound wasn't like music he'd known, before. It was driven, like the pumping of blood. He could only think of sex, or - perhaps - ritual. Perhaps death. It seemed as if she moved, at ease, with the Dark One.

  
It was all drive, all heat, and when there was melody, it was strange; lilting and haunting, minor keys and dissonance. It wove around Belle, alone in a small sea of bodies, and it showed her out. She was a ghost, moving among them. Or she was the only real thing, the only living thing in a world of the dead.

  
He moved away from the muzzled wolf girl and the banality of the bar-keep; "our Lacey", indeed. In a wandering path, eyes on Belle in a way that felt like _hunting_ , he found himself seated at a small, round table. Candle light glowed in a red votive, a small circle of lurid light. It didn't reach him; he was in shadow.

  
Who is she, he wondered? He'd wondered before, invading her privacy to read the things she'd written in her journal. She was a smart girl, in many ways a practical girl. He'd seen her instinctive methods of coping, adapting. He'd admired her strength.  
But she was something else, besides. It was hard to name. It was connected to magic, he felt certain. More than himself, she was connected to spirit... a world of death. It seemed almost natural, though it surprised him, that she was drawn to the Dark One.  
The song she danced to wound down. Gods, the shock of her... she was a wild thing, somewhere within her sweet countenance. Her patience and quiet nature. The creature he watched was unleashed in a way that differed from Lacey's freedom entirely.He wanted her... he _had_ her, he reasoned with himself. She was his, he was hers. But she was so much her own, a thing he hadn't truly seen until watching her move in this space, this facet of the Dark One. As if she belonged. She belonged to herself as did mermaids, witches; those sorceresses who lived for magic, leaving all else behind.

  
She was so like him, he realized. It was frightening.

  
Her body stilled as the music transitioned, and she seemed to be making her way out of a trance. She saw him. Rumpelstiltskin didn't know how, as he certainly lurked, ghoulish, dark-suited in darkness. Her eyes landed on him, a key slipped into place, and for a moment he was assaulted by an absurd need to hide. He felt a stab of uneasy, cowardly and foolish guilt, aware that he'd invaded her space, the bizarre and very new territory of "girl time". It was as squirmy and needy as reading her private writing, and he was loathe to be exposed.

  
His vision was oddly clear, enhanced; for even in the dark and smoky distance, he saw the startling blue of her eyes. His heart made the hurtful squeeze, and then lurched into high gear as he realized.... she was _running_ to him.

  
" _Rumpel_!" she said, plopping herself onto his lap.

  
Her voice was warm and pleased... she was happy to see him. Even, Rumpelstiltskin observed, _excited_ to see him. Her eyes were bright, her smile wide. She was flushed and hot from her dance, and her skin bore traces of something glittery, trailing one of Ruby's cosmetic scents. Her enthusiasm, her public display made him break into a soft, very surprised laugh.

  
"It's Gold, dearie." he smiled.

  
"You're _here_." she beamed.

  
She was so happy to see him... on what he'd taken to be _her_ turf. Rumpelstiltskin experienced a moment of horror wherein he thought she might want him to dance with her. He could waltz her around the room, and would do so happily, even with the vulnerable leg. But whatever it was she'd been doing on the dance floor, whatever place she'd gone to, he was sure he could not follow.

  
"I am, indeed, love."

  
She kissed him, and he was breath-taken. This was different. He remembered her running through the courtyard of the Dark Castle, leaping into his arms, skin cold with snow, blood hot, beneath. She possessed a physicality that wasn't sexual, yet it drove her sexuality... or sparked it. He hadn't seen it in Storybrooke, where they tip-toed or hurtled, navigating an odd courtship as altered people. He burned beneath her now, remembering. How he'd loved the way she ran, roughshod, over his polite distance. She'd teased him into a chase, and he'd followed. He'd followed before he'd ever understood that he'd been led.

  
"This is rather out in the open." he murmured against her lips. He was fully hard against her denim clad bottom, and was torn between a desire to ravish, to _take_ the stranger-friend he'd watched dance; and also to _not_ have the town see him led about by his erection, presumably by the knowing Lolita they all thought Belle to be.

  
"I don't care." Belle murmured back, and Gods... her kiss was so full of suggestiveness and need. His tongue was alarmingly alive against hers; awake and speaking in a fairly direct manner to his cock. Was it possible to somehow penetrate her where they sat? He supposed not, but was caught in a hedonistic vision of Belle, naked and straddled-open, riding him as he remained still and suit-clad in the chair. Up and down went her body, breasts bouncing, uncaring of the denizens of The Rabbit Hole.

  
"Oh.... dearie, dear. I need to get you home."

  
She laughed, lips vibrating against his, teeth briefly clacking. "Excited, Rumpel?"

  
"Gold, _Lacey_."

  
Smiling, she said, "I want to dance just a little more, then we'll go."

  
_Fuck_. His hand squeezed her thigh, and he said, "I feel, rather urgently, that we should make our departure."

  
"Oh, Rumpel. I'm all sweaty and gross."

  
"I think not."

  
She kissed him again, and then her mouth became evil, seeking highly sensitive places at his neck, his ear. Lips brushing against him in a way that made his cock jump, she whispered, " One more song. Then I belong to you."

  
Reluctantly, he let her go. Thank the gods for suit jackets and roomy trousers... he would have been a disaster in leather. He watched her again... the change, the alteration that came over her. It was as if there was a fold in the air, a hidden place where spirits existed alongside the living. She stepped into the fold, was met with Darkness and danced its dance.

  
As entranced as she, Rumpelstiltskin thought that perhaps he could share her with this Other. He could let her belong to herself, as -truly- he belonged to himself. They would each give of themselves to one another.


	12. Electricity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The majority of this chapter is not train (or the like) friendly. Pretty much from the word "go". Take heed. ; )

He barely got her in the door. Rumpelstiltskin didn't know how he'd even gotten her home.... the car ride was a blur of blood pounding in his ears, and Belle's small hand toying, playfully, with his cock. Her mouth, soft and teasing at his neck.

  
"Belle, love. Stop it." he'd moaned, a stop light giving him a moment to come back to himself. Colors that glowed in darkness, like lamps in his old library; red, yellow, green.

  
"Truly?"

  
"No. Don't stop."

  
For awhile, in the leafy, shadowed, night-time seclusion of the driveway, she'd taken him in her mouth. He'd moved the seat back; the courtesy of a modern man, he'd thought with a bit of a smirk; the steering wheel was big, and got in the way.

  
She was so _eager_. Scents engulfed him... her hot, dancing scent, the light floral of the odd sparkle on her skin. Smoke and cloves and spirits, wine and beer. The cold green of the night-time air seeped into the car, as well as owl call, cricket chirp. Belle's head moved slowly up and down, her hair falling over his lap and obscuring the devilry of what happened to him.

  
Her mouth, like the rest of her overheated, vibrating body was ardent. " _Mmmmm...._ " she breathed, a sound in her throat that he felt in his pelvic floor. Her tongue made a wet swirl over the head of his cock, tasting him and keeping him in a delirious tease. Her touch, her breath and her lips all made him heavy with sensuality.

  
Rumpelstiltskin didn't want it to end. He buried his hand in her hair, feeling its softness and stirring up yet more scent. He stroked her back, pulling up her t-shirt to feel the heat of her bare skin. " _Suck me..._ " he whispered, and _gods_ , she did. Full lips, wet, wicked tongue. His muscles clenched and unclenched, climbing to climax and retreating, over and over.

  
"Come here, love." he pulled her up. He kissed her mouth, hungry and seeking. The outlandishness of her little-girl hand stroking him... the feel of her full breasts, the curve of her hip and dip of her waist... the lushness of her woman's body, at war with her child's face. Such blushing innocence, Rumpelstiltskin thought. How he always wished to plunder it.... Her wide eyes could hide very little.

  
It wasn't the first time she'd led him about by his cock. She smiled over her shoulder, lips painted a rose-pink that smelled of... bubble-gum? His cock was a weird, naked appendage, sticking out of his dark trousers; ruddy weaponry by which he was led, as if on a leash. At the door, she hugged close to his back, stroking the hot, throbbing thing as he tried to fit the key to the lock. He dropped the keys. Belle paused in her ministrations to pick them up up, and.... _oh_ , the witch. She gave him a quick, sinful suck before handing him the keys. Her hand returned... it played and fondled, and she whispered, "Hurry, Rumpel. I need it inside me."

  
He nearly dropped the keys, again.... His hands weren't up to fiddling with keys when they longed to hold her, to bare her and to do hurtful things in the name of pleasure and raw need.

  
And then they were in the door... the door closed, at least he hoped it closed. The dark night muted its stained glass frame; the amber of a moth-ridden porch light, light full of swimming shadows, revealed little patches of red, fuschia, colbalt.

  
Belle turned to him, sliding his jacket from his shoulders and working his tie, lips parted and breath fast. He couldn't wait for all of that... too much complication, and on top of the key debacle. He pulled her down to the floor, the dim foyer as good a shelter as any. Cane clattered, rolled away.

  
She wore her jeans more loosely than most women about town; no doubt her inclinations struggled between full-skirted dresses and Lacey's wardrobe. She helped him with the buttons and zipper, a soft scuffle, a wordless struggle. He abruptly pulled jeans and panties of baby-pink down to her ankles. He was impeded by her adolescent-looking sneakers, but had lost all composure. Long since. His mind became misted, a red haze against darkness. Laces were unthinkable, delay impossible. His own trousers were pushed to his knees, shirt half undone, tie loose, but hanging from his neck. He pushed Belle's knees to her chest. It wasn't ideal; her trapped ankles stayed together, her legs covering her face.

  
What was revealed, however, were the creamy backs of her thighs, leading to the upturned curve of her bum, and the beacon, like neon through the fog, of her pussy. Vulva pressed into a blushing pout, a shine of wetness where her opening was somewhat obscured by the position.

  
His teeth were on edge, breath hissing on his inhalation. Her scent lured him, hot and frantic... she would bleed tonight, he was certain. Her musk was livid with her time; his invasion of her body would bring on the moon blood.

  
Bending, he laved over the pout of her with his tongue, gratified by the squirm of her hips, the soft cry at her exhalation. He had to taste her, this girl who danced with death. She was salty-sweet; flicking his tongue at the wetness leaking from her body, he tasted the blood. A febrile taste. He swelled with it, fingers gripping the backs of her thighs, tongue inside of her. He felt the hollowness of his chest, suddenly full of anxious fluttering. A growl sounded... it was him, he realized.

  
Coming upright, to his knees, he held the head of his aching, teased cock to her slick opening. She cried out, arms flung back as he slid into her. It was so raw, he gasped and went still for a moment. How she gripped him... muscle pressed to flesh in pulsing, velvet wetness, the heat of it shocking to the senses. The heat of their connection unraveled in his belly and up his spine, and the red haze became nearly all he could see. His hips spasmed into pumping... he was still led by his cock.

  
He was squeezed not only by her pussy, but by the tight press of her thighs. It was too much, but he couldn't stop thrusting.... _more_ , his body demanded. _More, more_.

  
Belle, it seemed, managed the cumbersome sneakers, close as they were to her face, her hands. Rumpelstiltskin had a bleary awareness that she tossed them away, to land somewhere in the shadows of the house. She edged one leg out of her jeans, and then... gods. Her legs splayed open. For a brief moment he stayed on his knees, thrusting and staring fixedly at the wet slide of his cock, the fevered blush of her pussy. Belle's hand came to work her clitoris, and he stared at that, too, feeling the heightened squeeze of his cock.

  
He would burst, come apart at the seams. His balls were tight, his body so sensitive that the brush of his clothes was hurtful. The socks and shoes on his feet were hot.

  
Reaching up, Belle grabbed his dangling tie and pulled him down, with force. " _Oh, yes..._ " he said, his voice still all growl. His mouth came to hers, as open and hot as her pussy. She tasted of sex, and his tongue in her mouth seemed to trigger a crisis at his hips. He pounded, the weight of his body leaning hard on his forearms, his hands buried in her hair. He felt her hands grab his bum, her hips rise to meet his. There was something like a scream, or a roaring wind inside of him... a hot wind, as if created by fire. It loosed itself and seared a path from his balls, up his vertebrae and into his head.

  
_"Fuck! Fuck!_ "

  
He felt Belle clench around him, nearly pushing him out. Soft fluid gushed... her body pulsed, tight on his cock, then relaxed. It repeated, blinding him with pleasure and deafening him to her desperate cries. With a groan, his lips and tongue too sensitive to kiss, he emptied into her.

  
It was a strange thing to come back to himself. He wasn't in the warm, comfort of Belle's bed, blissful and half in dream. He was on the gloss and lemon-honey scent of a wood floor, and they'd made a mess. He laughed softly, having to untangle both from Belle, and from the haphazard, tossed-about arrangement of their clothing.

  
As they did, meeting each other's eyes with a strange shyness, Belle said, "I love you, Rumpel."

  
It hurt his heart, and he unthinkingly placed his hand over it, massaging. He stared down at the girl-woman, naked now, but for a Wonder Woman t-shirt and pink socks.

  
"I love you, too, Belle." he said.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Her eyes were soft, but then gained a hard focus.

  
"Oh, Rumpel." she stared with concern at his groin, which made him a little concerned as well. He wasn't quick to look down.

  
"Oh... damn. I've bloodied you."

  
Oh. Well, then.

  
"Not to fret, dearie." It was difficult not to appear smug, and just as difficult to understand the smugness. Why did it please him, he wondered? The keen sense of when her time came; the knowing that he would make her bleed.

  
"I'm going to get cleaned up." Belle said, and was walking away, adorable in her half-naked sway. _Cheeky_.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
She was tired. A heavy, dreamy tiredness; but she still insisted on working on his leg. It had become a nightly ritual, and Belle found she couldn't go without it. Without it, she became restless; a dog who couldn't settle down to her circle-bed.

  
Rumpelstiltskin was tired as well. Belle could feel it, a heavy, moving, salt-water feeling all around him. The feeling was very warm, and it made her think of how strange it was to watch his human face when he was deeply asleep. His lips seemed more full, then. Swollen. His cheeks flushed like a child's. Heat rose from his skin, and seemed somehow at odds with the age his swept-back hair revealed. At such times she touched her fingertips or her lips to the soft purse of his mouth, amazed by his sleep-heat. It was like a force-field.

  
She was beginning to feel something like that as she worked on him. He teased her about the "working", for it was only sitting still, concentrating. Which, she'd pointed out, was what he'd painstakingly taught her at home. His tease was light, however; even people in town had noticed the ease of his walk.

  
It was a cold place to which the Curse had taken them, but Belle kept finding herself drowsy with heat. It came from Rumpelstiltskin's sleepy energy, it came from her hands, as they tried to pour healing into him. It felt as if heat poured into the top of her head, spilling out of her eyes and fingers.

  
Lazy, Rumpelstiltskin sprawled on a deep, rust-colored couch and watched flickering images on a television. It was unusual for him, and - for Belle - it was another source of heat. All of these boxes, big and very little, everywhere in Storybrooke. They all made a buzzing in her head, and they all seemed to put off heat, though others denied it. Sometimes she felt, even heard the buzzing in wires that traveled between power poles, sectioning out the sky. Sometimes she was aware that the wires were underground.

  
It was a busy place, this world. It buzzed... with many voices. The buzzing made heat.

  
Rumpelstiltskin watched the images without sound, a blue-white flicker in the mostly dark house. The flickering cast shadows and made pale ghosts on the walls. It reflected, a cold blue, on glass-fronted bookshelves. He hugged a pillow to his chest, eyes hooded and face seeming to puzzle over the images.

  
Belle sat on the floor, her back to the television, yet it made her head buzz. Her hands, the energy around Rumpelstiltskin's leg grew even hotter, so that one of his hands came to rub, restlessly, just above his knee. The blue light reflected on his fingernails.

  
Then a thing happened that had happened once in awhile, since waking to herself in Storybrooke. Something cold sliced through the warm fug and buzz of heat, as precise as a blade. It made Belle goosebump, the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing on end. She was alert, as if she had antenna, or cat ears that turned back. She saw that Chloe, curled beside Rumpelstiltskin on the couch, slitted open her eyes and cocked her ears. She looked up at Rumpelstiltskin, but he didn't show any sign of sensing a presence.

  
Belle sensed it; _presence_. It felt, to her, as if something stepped out of the buzz of the television. It, itself, was the buzz. But, _cold_. She felt afraid to turn and look, but had a feeling as if it stepped out, looked around, and then retreated back into the box.

  
Into whatever was within the box... The babble of information. The voices.


	13. Another Day

Rumpelstiltskin was going to rip the little bell from over his shop door and shove it down some unfortunate throat.

  
As had happened in the Dark Castle, he was losing focus. He was quick to blame Belle, but he knew that it was his usual, coward's way out. It was unworthy. Still... she was a distraction to the point that sometimes he thought; Why not? Why not simply _be_ Gold, with his earthly bit of hard won power and his beautiful, warm and compassionate paramour? It was a good life. He was wealthy, swaddled in comfort, and while his looks were not beloved in town, they did nothing to inspire torches and pitchforks. No one was calling in the clergy. As he'd guiltily thought in the past; Bae was a grown man, now. Bae knew this world better than he... the wide world, outside of Storybrooke. Baelfire had no need, probably no want of him.

  
It was a struggle in his mind, even in his body. _Let go_ , a part of him said. It was seductive; it looked like Belle. But, no. It wasn't her. It was himself... he'd lived so bloody long, and his human body was ready for a long nap. Curled next to Belle.

  
... But, also, there was an unfinished feeling. Something aimless about this pretend life... It nagged at him.

  
And then there were days like the one he was having. First, a visit from Regina. Well, she was thoughtful enough to bring a paper cup of hot tea, but still. Often he enjoyed her little drop-ins... He enjoyed toying with her and playing the innocent Curse victim to all of her paranoid, and yet mostly correct suspicions.

  
However, he was in no mood. Smug intimations about _Lacey_ , who was off tending to her birds. It was getting old.

  
"Surely she's not merely your ward these days, Gold. Sweet, sweet Jane to your Byronic Rochester. Imagine what she could find in _your_ house."

  
Her merlot colored smile seemed always to drip melted, raspberry chocolate. It made him wonder; did _she_ ever want to just let go? If the temptation existed for him, surely Regina, gifted with power, beauty and sensuality... Surely she must sometimes be tempted to forget her revenge and just make a family with a besotted admirer. Complete with the child he'd supplied her.

  
But, of course, that child was not simple happenstance. Of course she couldn't let go, any more than he. She knew who she was. Like himself, she was probably haunted by it. That knowledge of self, remembering... _feeling_ what one has done. It interrupts a process of letting go. It speaks the word, _undeserved_. The body won't bloody accept it.

  
"The good word in Storybrooke is that you all but drooled on yourself in The Rabbit Hole. Don't let that little girl give you a stroke, now."

  
Fine. She deserved whatever pain she ultimately got. She'd already accused him of knowing who Henry's mother was when he acquired the boy. Correct as usual, dearie, and yet the mark was once again missed. The big... the _bigger_ picture. The _longest_ game. She hadn't the stamina. He'd denied it all, of course. Mr Gold might not be innocent, per se, but certainly he was innocent of that level of informed plot. He was absolutely innocent of the Dark One.

  
"Jealous, dearie?"

  
She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  
I just don't understand how you made such a change in... Lacey. I can hardly recognize her as her the girl she once was."

  
He gave her a mild look. He words were merely passing the time of day, engaged in the pastime of ribbing him. Her eyes were _hungry_. Did she think he would say, Why, her Curse is broken, Madam Mayor. You failed to keep Belle from me. And, by the way, it's _me,_ dearie.

  
He fantasized it. His hand itched to grab her neck, his teeth clenched, aching for his lips to pull back and for his tongue to speak exactly the truth. The Dark One, so very caged in this world, raged. It battered at his insides, trying to get out.

  
She eventually gave up and left his shop, and he found himself arbitrarily wondering; why was there a stuffed goose mounted on his wall? Regina was his decorator, he assumed. Of all of the objects that had come with him from the old life, cluttering his shop and parts of his house; what use had he for a stuffed goose? Or that sitar-looking thing? Had they belonged to him, before?

  
Next on the day's curriculum was the Sheriff, Regina's pup. Her henchman and slave, poor dog. The hollow man, with no heart. He said an insinuating word or two, but it was so obviously Regina speaking through him. He was easily dismissed.

  
It was easy, for the most part, to give nothing away. In the role of Mr. Gold, within the context of Storybrooke, there was nothing to give. He'd let off local terror for the time being, a nod to Belle. All of his attention was focused on her and Baelfire. Soon, the man with no heart, heartless in spite of his soulful eyes that hungered differently from Regina's, took his leave.

  
The shop was really like a much modified tower room. Rumpelstiltskin didn't care if he ever sold a thing, but rather, he calmed his mind with a sort of taking of inventory. He considered the breaking of the Curse, surely close, now. His mind ticked with the things his hands didn't do; formulating a potion he could send through one of the portals, tucked into the surrounding forest. If he could get it right, he might bring a bit of magic into this world. Power.

  
Tick-tick-tock.

  
The bloody bell. Because he didn't care about sales, the people rummaging about got on his nerves. _Out_ , he wanted to tell them. _Go, go, go!_... scurry, little mice. Oh, if only. Mice, pumpkins, snails... It would be a better world.

  
The bell rang with new aggression, and Rumpelstiltskin looked up from a map of this world, disconcertingly large. Emma Swan was just inside his door, and he felt his abdomen tighten in an unpleasant way. "What fresh hell is this?" he murmured to himself, before pasting on what he hoped was a normal sort of smile. Surely she wasn't here to upbraid him for being a dirty, old man. Emma's ways tended to be more... direct.

  
"Miss Swan. How do you do, this lovely morning?"

  
She gave him a look that differed little from Ruby's. _Weird, old man_ , the look said. Her language was not built around old world conventions and courtesies. She couldn't use polite words to mask agendas, as did he and Regina.

  
"Gold." she said, rather husky voiced for a slender, pale blonde. "I have some questions... about Henry. About his book."

 


	14. Serpent

Some of the raptors looked eternally offended. It always amused Belle. Stern, miffed; staring down curved, uppity beaks... they reminded her a bit of Rumpelstiltskin. _I judge you_ , said the osprey's face. _You are incorrect_. _But, yes. I will take that fish. Give it_.

  
On the other hand, Mary Margaret called the osprey "Elvis" due to the long, side-burns appearance of its feather pattern. _You ain't nothin' but a hound-dog, dearie_.

  
Could they work spells, she wondered? The owls in the Deadlands had surely helped with hers. She thought often of Rumpelstiltskin describing "casting"... the unformed world into which owls could fly.

  
But these guys... it felt different to her. The rounded, little burrowing owl... he bobbed up and down on his oddly long legs, and therefore was called "Bobby". When approached, he turned and ran into the recesses of his wooden box. Belle understood the impulse.

  
Parts of her volunteer work were truly gross. Beyond cleaning up bird poop, no small thing when it came to the eagles, there was the feeding. The prey creatures... dead by the dozens. She found herself scooping up platefuls of ex-baby chicks, or opening the freezer to access a supply of frozen, ex-mice. It was _so_ disturbing. Once, when there were hamsters instead of mice, she'd had to use heavy, black-handled scissors to cut the frozen hamsters in half. The whole ones were too big for the screech owls.

  
Oh, the animal kingdom. It was rough out there, as she'd often discovered while walking in the woods. She sometimes came across a gristly display of feathers, semi-attached to a wing joint. Once, a baby squirrel who had fallen from its nest and perished.

  
Another time, she'd heard a loud cry, almost exactly like a baby crying. It had made her frantic, and she'd looked all over, checking amongst shrubs and stands of enormous ferns. Finally, the carry of the sound drew her eyes _up_ , which seemed unlikely. But there it was. A snake's long body dangled down from a branch of pine,and it was swallowing a frog, back-end first.

  
She'd been horrified. She'd felt the horror physically; it wracked her body, spasming belly and throat. It was the _frog_ that made the noise! She couldn't believe it. She wanted to think that if some little creature became prey to a predator, it would fall into shock. Nature would bless it with the mercy of something like a trance; its spirit would move on before its body became dinner.

  
It didn't appear so in the instance of snake and frog. Belle had nightmares about it for days after, and tried to keep it blocked from her mind. The unhinged jaws of the snake, its still and silent, determined and slow swallow. It was utterly alien. And the frog, half swallowed, making that infant's cry. She never imagined a frog would make that sound.

  
Belle loved nature. In this world she was tagged as "one of those" people. Here, where progress boomed and drove the world, nature was a bit suspect. Tree huggers and conservationists and such... often were seen as childish idealists.

  
Well, that was her, Belle supposed. She was once of those people. But, in addition to her love of nature, her wish to help and preserve; she had also developed a healthy respect. And sometimes she felt horror. _Horrors_.

  
The very same birds she'd loved all of her life would, on occasion, push their young from the nest. Crows, such as those who swaggered about the Deadlands, or those who fed from Granny's dumpster and appeared to be on steroids, would eat the eggs of other birds. It was hard to reconcile such things with the connection she felt to birds, with her understanding of them.

  
Sometimes the conflict of the natural world brought her to darker thoughts. Thoughts of Rumpelstiltskin. She felt that she understood him, that her connection to him was deep, and right. But, oh. He'd killed. Sometimes gleefully. There were things in his past that he regretted, that shamed him. However, Belle wasn't convinced that the occasional murder spree was necessarily one of them. The reality of this hit her every now and again. It was hard to ignore when she bled, and his eyes glazed over with lust.

Blood, so far as she knew, was a desire of the Dark One. Especially _that_ sort of blood, useful in magic, Rumpelstiltskin once told her. Yet he liked its taste on his tongue, its feel on his skin. The thought made Belle shiver, wary of the parts of him she couldn't fully know.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
After her birds, she dropped by Ruby's to see if she wanted to grab a coffee and go to the library. She hadn't really expected Ruby to take her up on the library, but a little chat over coffee didn't seem out of the question. However, Ruby was bleary eyed, sullen and a little chilly. Belle tried to recollect where the moon was in it's cycle; Rumpelstiltskin had told her that- in the old life - Ruby was under another curse, altogether. A were-curse. When the moon was full in Storybrooke, she grew irritable. Belle thought Ruby must be as trapped as Rumpelstiltskin, and more confused about it than him.

  
It wasn't a wolf moon, but some little resentment filled the space between them. Was it because Rumpelstiltskin absconded with Belle, taking her from The White Rabbit? It felt sticky and... ew.

  
"I have to work." Ruby said, in a dull way. Well, Belle knew that... but it wasn't for hours. With a nonchalant shoulder lift, Ruby said, " We don't all get a sugar-daddy, you know."

  
Oh. Belle looked down, blushing hotly and feeling overcome with uselessness. What did it matter that she'd labored over birds since before the sun appeared? It didn't mean anything. It felt strange to stand outside of Ruby's door, not admitted into the little den of girlieness. Backing away, she muttered something - _sorry to wake you_ \- and was surprised to hear an equally muttered, nothing sort of response. The door clicked softly shut.

  
For a moment, Belle felt tearful. It seemed always upsetting in such an alien way... this loyalty, this need for approval from another woman. She was a stranger to it, but clearly Lacey was not. Lacey carried odd images about... skinned knees and fingers salty with potato chips. Skin overly hot while playing dress-up and dreaming about boys, about sex. An adolescent cataloging of all of the things she and Ruby wanted to "be" when they grew up: marine biologists, archaeologists, actresses, veterinarians, poets, detectives... roller derby queens?

  
Clearly, none of it had worked out. Even stranger; the specifics of it, the details, the sense of time and loss, the loyalties crossed when Lacey developed her crush on Mr. Gold; all of this was _implanted_. All of it was a mechanism of the Curse, perhaps informed by its unaware participants.

  
Unsettled by all of it, Belle got her solitary coffee to go and went to the library on her own.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
It was turning out to be an unsettling day, generally. Dead, baby chicks, Ruby's quiet anger. Belle had thought to look up some information on the forests of the area.... she'd seen unfamiliar plants, wildflowers that seemed to like moist, shady places, growing in masses. She liked to put names and habits to such things.

  
Instead, her eye was drawn to a fairly intimidating tome, large and full of small type, a wealth of footnotes. Every page seemed to be at least half full of footnotes, which didn't bother Belle too much, but the Lacey part of her groaned. Just say it outright, that part of her thought. Give it to me straight up.

  
It was not a straight up sort of book. It was a study and analysis of many parts of the Christian bible, and - for the life of her - Belle couldn't figure out the author's perspective. Was he in support of it? Was it meant to debunk? Was it merely interpretation of content; symbolic, metaphoric or otherwise?

  
She took the heavy book to her chair and flipped through it, her eyes skimming over words in a non-committal way. She'd noticed a prevalence of religion via Rumpelstiltskin's television, as well as conflicts arising from different beliefs. She also noticed that those in Storybrooke seemed not overly affected by it. Even the consistently moralizing weren't obviously religious.

  
It was a little bit foreign to the Enchanted Forest, she thought. It had its histories of various religions, pockets of belief, but nothing had really taken hold as had happened in this world. Belle wondered if, in the presence of magic, religion lost some of its power.

  
It was a name that caught her; first one, then two. _Eve_. Her own writing came back to her: _the bejeweling of the daughters of Eve_. And then Cain: _Inside the rider is a man, centuries old, once they called him Cain, horns upon his brow, and he has died many times since then and gained knowledge._

  
The book on her lap didn't report a bejeweling of daughters or a death and resurrection pattern applied to the person of Cain. It was all unsettling, nonetheless.

  
Eve, she read, in this religion was the first woman. The first mother, the beginning of the human race. Over and over, more and more disturbed, Belle read of Eve's encounter with The Serpent.

  
She could not separate herself from the crying baby sound of the frog while considering a speaking snake. The many footnotes referenced other parts of the Christian bible, as well as separate works altogether, which tied The Serpent to the Devil that harried Christian beliefs. The Enemy. He was called The Father of Lies, and yet Belle thought it was clear that The Serpent had not lied.

  
It was like Rumpelstiltskin, she thought, uneasy. It spoke the truth... in a beguiling manner. It played with cause and effect, with words, and was assured it achieved its goals in this manner. It caused doubt, but it didn't lie.

  
"You will not surely die." it told Eve, when the Christian deity had warned that the fruit from the forbidden tree would kill her.

  
Was it magic, like the apple trees Regina once grew? The tree that was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...

  
Oh, how like Eve she would have been, Belle thought. How could she turn away from knowledge? Being aware, awake unto herself and the world... She would have been exiled from paradise, just like Eve.

  
Cain, it turned out, was Eve's child. He was the first murderer, turning against his brother in a jealous rage. The first human to spill the blood of another. Belle had thought to read that he was killed, punished with death by the omnipotent deity, who had brooded the world into existence over a formless nothing. She was surprised to find that, while punished, Cain was protected by the deity.

  
He was banished... to The Land of Nod. From whence had this Nod arisen, Belle wondered, since all that occurred in these passages occurred as firsts. The footnotes told her that in the old languages of the original writings, the word "Nod" may have meant "to wander".

  
So perhaps he wandered, this Cain, banished from his home, and a "mark" was set upon him, so that all who saw him would know he was under the deity's protection.

  
Well, that was odd.

  
Belle perused deeper into the tiny type of the footnotes, further referenced in the book's index. There she learned of alternative views, outside of the Christian bible. The same, or similar stories told by different voices with different views, maybe in different times. Apocrypha.

  
It was proposed that The Serpent was not a literal serpent, but rather an angelic presence, whether good or evil. Because it brought knowledge, an advancement of consciousness to humanity, it was called the Light Bringer. It was suggested that Able, the murdered brother,  was Eve's son by Adam, the first man and her husband; but Cain was the son of The Serpent.

  
Belle considered it. Both were banished; one from Paradise, condemned to crawl on his belly, eating dust. The other banished from home, and marked. _Cursed_. As The Serpent was cursed. Banished to wander in desolation.

  
She felt jumpy in her skin, itching to speak with Rumpelstiltskin, driven by the babble-writing she'd done in the Dark Castle. She'd tried, before, to delve into the subject of the Dark One... Rumpelstiltskin was willing, but the conversation was limited. Aside from her own writing and the places it took him, he said, "What we know about the Dark One is fuck all."

  
Surely there were clues, here. She'd written these very names down, while living in a different world.


	15. The Owl and The Fox

She checked the book out of the library, and then felt as if she'd been cursed by its deity, condemned to carry the awkward, heavy thing wherever she went. She decided to cut through the woods rather than walk through town. Rumpelstiltskin had expanded on a much used deer path that eventually led to the back of his house, and Belle was fairly certain she wouldn't get lost.

  
She ambled along, trying to calm her racing mind with the scent of earth, the hushed sounds of the forest. The trees were so big, their bark almost black in the subdued light. They were furred with moss, like velvet on antlers.

  
Mary Margaret had invited her to take a hiking sort of class called " Frolicking with Fungus". Belle smiled, thinking that Rumpelstiltskin might enjoy the name. She'd accepted the invitation, and now scanned the humus and root-lumpy ground for specimens.

  
There was a darting shadow, minnow-like, and then a brief blaze of orange in a patch of sunlight. Belle went completely still, staring at the place where she'd sensed movement. Within a few seconds, a fox face peered around a tree trunk.

  
It stared at Belle, who had ceased to think in its presence. She stared back. Directly overhead, a barred owl let out a sudden, very loud and monkey-like chortle. Belle nearly came out of her skin, and said, " _Shit_ ," hand to her heart. She hadn't known the owl was there.

  
She'd literally jumped, very nearly danced a little jig, and fully expected to have scared the fox away. But, no... it was still there. One amber eye, one big ear, peering around a tree. It gave her pause... was this a magical sort of strangeness, or did the fox have rabies? Its behavior was unusual.

  
The owl lifted into silent flight, going from one tree to another. Belle watched, feeling amazed and yet dull, thoughtless, as the fox looked up, following the pattern of flight. Bringing its blaze of a small body into dapples of light, the fox trotted on dainty, soot-feet, following the owl.

  
After a moment, still feeling as though the wheels of her mind had come to a stop, Belle followed.

  
The meandering path of owl and fox took her off of the deer path... she was aware of it, but not too concerned. Her book had become downright burdensome... there was no easy, convenient way to carry it as she pushed aside brush, ducked under branches and sidle-slid over fallen trees, leaving smears of black and green on her bum. Her animal and bird guides took her deep into darkness, a thickness of under and overgrowth... a _plethora_ of fungi. Near the base of an enormous, ancient fir, the fox began to dig.

  
Belle stood still, certain she was collecting ticks in her hair. Her arms, she thought even her face was scratched up.... stray, twiggy branches and thorny vine. The owl was perched overhead and muttered to itself. The fox dug and dug, obsessive. What had it buried there, Belle wondered?

  
It seemed to have reached the goal of its digging, and - playfully - did a twisting sort of backwards hop. It looked at Belle, lolling its tongue out in a smile before bounding away. The owl flew off as well, and Belle thought... damn. She was such a child, following creatures this way. She hoped she could find her way back to the path.

  
Carefully picking her way amongst cat briar and stunted hawthorn, Belle made her way to the fir tree. The hole the fox dug was fairly deep, but she could see a gleam at the bottom. Did foxes hoard shiny things, like some of the corvidae? She was reluctant to reach down there... cold seemed to whoosh up from the dark hole, the gleam obscured by a criss-crossing of root filaments. She had thoughts of beetles, worms... larvae...

  
Snakes.

  
Well. She was a mess, already. On her knees, she reached her arm into the hole, up to her shoulder, and grasped about in the unpleasant, fairly wet chill. She worked blindly, and thought, _please, please, please_....

  
Please don't bite me? Please don't scare me to death? Please don't keep my arm?

  
Her fingertips closed on metal, even colder than the air. She was letting the book get dirty, but what could she do? She'd topple if she tried to hold onto it. With effort, she pulled herself upright, extracting the object that kept getting stuck in root, in uneven juts of rock and dirt.

  
Finally it was out, and Belle stared at a dagger. It was different from any dagger she'd seen before... It rippled; its design was a wave. It was a serpent.

  
Not realizing the quickening of her breath, she turned it over. She brushed dirt away from ornamentation, engraving that covered the body of the dagger.

  
It was scripted, "Rumpelstiltskin".

  
There was a sound overhead, and Belle thought her heart would explode. One day, maybe, she would be found, a skeleton with a mysteriously shredded and splintered rib cage and sternum. One bony hand curled around a dagger, the book long decayed away. It was geese, she realized. The sound that was like a marauding band of ghosts, like a pack of coyotes traveling by sky roads... it was just geese.

  
She pulled herself together, and set about finding her path.


	16. The Dagger

Belle couldn't remember having ever seen Rumpelstiltskin speechless. It might have been funny, had she not been so rattled.

  
What a sight she was. She caught her reflection in a long, oval mirror in the foyer... it caught bits of light from colored glass in the otherwise darkened nook. She looked like a madwoman. Her hair was wildly tangled, and caught up with leaves and twigs, ( _ticks_ , she thought), her face, hands and arms were filthy, and she bled from dozens of cuts and scratches. Her clothes were likely ruined, and her sneakers, the hem of her jeans were covered in little, sticky, bright green seeds. Chloe, with a feline ecstasy that couldn't be contained, tried to turn herself inside out as she sniffed and rubbed against Belle's legs.

  
By the time she got home, a small amount of intrigue had worn off and was replaced by a feeling of _ordeal_. She had a shrewish desire to slam down her book, and say something like, "Could you not have sent an owl to lead me out?" It seemed a little unreasonable, even to her. Her lower belly hurt, as did the small of her back. Her bloody bra cut into breasts that seemed weighty and sore, and she was grumpy with the feeling of needing to clean up. To change the stupid, overly damp and twisting pad she wore. The worn out feeling of exasperation seemed to rob her of her self sufficiency; hard-won shreds of adulthood. It made her question herself in relation to Rumpelstiltskin, and all of the things people said about the two of them. All she wanted to do was pout like a little girl, accuse him of some sort of wrongful neglect and wait for him to fix it. _Carry me_ , she used to say when she was little, hands in the air. _Pick me up._ How annoying she must have been. Carry me, she thought. Make it all better.

  
But Rumpelstiltskin was speechless. He stared at her in slack-jawed, wide-eyed silence. His eyes moved over her wild appearance, and then back to the dagger she'd placed on the kitchen counter. He'd backed away from it.

  
Was it too late, she wondered, to say, "Just kidding!" To somehow take it back... to undo the work of fox and owl, and her curious, reaching hand...

  
Finally, he murmured, "Where did you get this?"

  
Belle looked down at herself. Three guesses, she thought, but she said, "In the woods."

  
"Yes, but... how? How did you find it?"

  
"You won't believe me."

  
"Try me, dearie."

  
With a sigh, prepared for the look that said she was childish at best, deranged at worst, she said, "I was led to it by a fox and an owl. The fox dug it up."

  
"Indeed?"

  
"What is it, Rumpel? Why is your name on it?"

  
He approached it with caution, as if it really was a serpent, a viper, and might rear up at him. He touched his fingertips to the dirt encrusted writing.

  
"Rumpel?"

  
Looking up at her, he said, "This dagger controls the Dark One, Belle. Its the only thing that will kill it, or kill me, rather... and send the Dark One into the body of my killer. Evidently, there are forces at work that think you should have it."

  
It was Belle's turn to back away. She held up her hands in protest, and heard her Lacey-self say, " _Whoa_. I don't think so, Rumpel. Not a chance."

  
Shrugging, he said, " I hid it for a reason. Obviously, in the wrong hands, say Regina's, this dagger represents a terrible vulnerability. She could take my power, or enslave me, make me her weapon... I would as soon this dagger remain buried, in spite of the magic it carries. But it seems something thinks otherwise."

  
"It has magic?" Belle asked. "Here?"

  
"It does. Though I don't understand how it works."

  
"Then maybe that's why." Belle pondered. "Maybe these 'forces' want you to have magic."

  
"Or maybe the dagger just missed the Dark One, its other half. But whatever the reason, it spoke through you. _To_ you."

  
"I don't want that thing. Its _yours_... it's too important to you. I won't be in charge of something so... dangerous."

  
Rumpelstiltskin remained quiet, fingertips barely touching the blade. It made Belle fidget. She wanted the heat and pounding water of a hot shower, one of the wonders of this world. The book she'd lugged about all day nagged at her... pieces of this world that had seeped into her old world. Her mind worried at the scraps, trying to make them fit, like puzzle pieces.

  
Finally, Rumpelstiltskin looked at her. "You have magic." he said.

  
It took her aback. "Of course I don't. And... there's no magic, here."

  
"Not true." Rumpelstiltskin's voice was a soft rasp. "There are wee bits of magic, like memory. I've no idea how to make them useful. And there's the dagger, which also seems inaccessible to me, here. There are openings... places where there's a potential for magic to be... imported.

  
"But you, dearie. It's in you, inside. It's innate." His look was almost a glare, a hint of greedy, gold tooth. "I smell it on you."


	17. Other Voices

Ruby sighed, and said, "Why, Jesus? Why?"

  
It startled Belle, who'd had stray thoughts about the messianic figure, and whose mind was busy weaving a complex web of connection between various religions, myths and the Dark One. Ruby, however, didn't really attach much meaning to the name. Belle followed her gaze to the approach of Dr. Whale, and thought, oh.

  
"Hi Ruby." he said, his smile firmly planted between nerdy and sleazy. Overly, almost sweetly hopeful, yet harboring pervy secrets.

  
Ruby gave a fake, almost plastic smile in return, gathering up menu and cutlery, preparing to _serve_ Dr. Whale; something Belle knew she loathed. He was already seated in his booth when Belle thought... sheesh. He hadn't even acknowledged her. A Lacey part of her puffed up, and she hollered, "Hi, Dr. Whale!"

  
He jumped a bit in the booth, then turned to give an awkward look to where she swiveled on a bar-stool, grinning. It had been for Ruby's benefit, and she snickered as she passed Belle.

  
How distressing, to think that Ruby might have the same opinion of Rumpelstiltskin as she did Whale. Maybe worse, as she didn't harp on about Whale's age. His hair... that was another story.

  
... Oh... Belle needed someone to talk to. Over the course of the morning, she'd started to open up to Ruby dozens of times, but found she simply couldn't. For starters, Ruby wasn't aware of her true self, her origin. Anything Belle might say would sound ludicrous... it might even if Ruby didn't have to call into question ideas such as magic, cursed daggers; the magic of which corrupted flesh.... In that sense might be said to have left a "mark" on someone...

  
_You're a wolf!_ Belle longed to say. She felt so desperate for a like-minded soul, outside of the utterly subjective company of Rumpelstiltskin. The subject was himself... it was slippery to discuss, at times.

  
_Wakey, wakey, wolf girl_. When would the savior get to it, already?

  
Belle's head was full to bursting. There was too much information, and not enough. Stray bits of it colored everything, so that she considered the Hindu notion of Maya, "magic" in Sanskrit; all matter is illusion. It certainly applied to Storybrooke; so could the Hindu beliefs have any link to magic in her homeland? Were religions, here, once tied to magic?

  
Or, on the other hand, the people in Storybrooke wandered about like Adam and Eve, before the "Fall". If ignorance was bliss, Storybrooke was the happiest place on earth. This scenario placed Regina in the unlikely role of the deity, lording over Eden, not wanting her people to share her knowledge, therefore her power. And... she even had the trees. With a guilty start, Belle realized that it placed her own feelings squarely in line with The Serpent. Halloween was coming... she was ready to whip up some knowledge-bearing fruit and orchestrate a little apple-bobbing.

  
... You will not surely die...

  
She sipped her coffee as Ruby hustled, feeling a familiar, childish feeling of guilt and relief. Ruby's bad mood had passed; she didn't seem to be nursing resentments over Belle's lack of work. Her _sugar daddy_. Still, it felt wrong, swiveling with dangling legs as Ruby took orders, fetched drinks and kow-towed to Granny. _I work at the pawn shop_ , Belle wanted to say, but it was a joke, even to her. She dreamed, there. She spent time with Rumpelstiltskin and read her books. She was a studious sort; she studied.

  
The bar-stool beside her became occupied, interrupting her ramble. Rumination. Her _Rumpeling_. She looked to see Leroy, and her gave her a look that was nearly as sardonic as Rumpelstiltskin's.

  
"Morning, sister."

  
"Hi, Leroy."

  
_You're a dwarf_ , she wanted to tell him. Although, within the context of Storybrooke, she supposed that might just be mean. Stripped of race and magical origin, she would only be calling him "short".

  
Rumpelstiltskin wasn't overly fond of dwarfs. Or anyone, really. It wasn't the same hatred he reserved for faeries, but the dislike was there. Belle couldn't help but feel that he expressed a snobbish, almost class-based bias when he spoke of them. As if they were beneath him. Well, height-wise, of course...

  
Although, she supposed, once he became the Dark One, pretty much everyone was beneath him.

  
As if reading her mind, Leroy asked, "How's your sweetie, Lace?"

  
He seemed a bit snide. Was he making fun of her?

  
Giving an assessing look, she said, "He's fine. He's well."

  
Leroy rolled his eyes.

  
"What?" Belle asked.

 

" 'He's _well_.' "

  
"Well?"

  
"Well, you never used to talk like that, sister."

  
"Right?" Ruby said, appearing behind the counter, coffee pot in hand for Leroy. "She's all proper now."

  
"The uptightness is contagious." Leroy agreed.

  
They both smiled, so Belle smiled back, deciding to take it as play.

  
"What the heck else would I say?" she asked. No one offered anything. _He's fine as wine. He's chillin' like villain_... well, that one was funny.

  
Leroy ordered breakfast enough for three people, and Belle raised a brow.

  
"I'm stout." he told her. " _Thick_." he added, and - for heaven's sake - he gave her a dirty look. Dwarf flirtation. If she were to believe Rumpelstiltskin, there were parts of their homeland where dwarfs could turn to stone, could only emerge as themselves at night, and traveled by day as frogs. She thought Rumpelstiltskin might turn Leroy into a frog and give him the snake treatment if he was aware of flirting.

  
"Okay, Leroy." she said.

  
"It takes a lot to fuel this... package."

  
She laughed in spite of the possible threat to Leroy's well being. "You're an idiot." she said. She cringed to wonder if Lacey had ever been... untoward with Leroy.

  
"So I've been told, sister."

  
Then there was a sound... like a muffled chattering, a little panicked. Belle and Leroy looked at one another, puzzled. Belle looked around... maybe for a child, under a table? A muted radio?

  
"I think it's coming from your purse." Leroy said. "Cell?"

  
No, she didn't have one. The buzz was too much for her, especially held directly to her head. It irritated Rumpelstiltskin, who saw a cell phone as a safety device in this world.

  
She picked her purse up from the counter and opened it. The sound was louder, a sound of struggle.

  
"What the..?" Leroy said.

  
Belle turned rounded eyes on him, and they both peered into her purse. A small, sad voice said, "I stuck in wallet."


	18. Wallet

" _What_." Leroy hissed.

  
Belle felt a little wild. She dug around in her purse, unable to speak. The little voice was saying, "Whoa... _whoa_ , nellie...."

  
At a great distance, Belle heard Ruby say, " Here you go, Dr. Whale."

  
"Oh, spank you, Ruby."

  
"Uh-huh."

  
".... What the crap, sister?"

  
_"I don't know, I don't know...."_ Belled whispered.

  
She found her wallet, then froze. She held it like it might explode, big eyes turned to Leroy. "You open it." she said.

  
"Uh-uh. Child, boo."

  
("I stuck in wallet.")

  
_"Oh...."_ Belle said, a nervous, wavering, little moan.

  
Carefully, she unzipped her wallet. Huddled close, she and Leroy peered inside.

  
"What the _crap_?" Leroy breathed.

  
Belle said, "I.... I...."

  
A tiny thing, maybe finger sized, stared up at them. It was sort of like a baby lemur, or maybe sloth; vaguely humanoid. "Hi." it said.

  
Belle did a quick re-zip, her heart squeezing to hear a frantic, " _Oh-no-no-no-nooooo..._ "

  
She bolted up from the bar-stool, absurdly grateful that Leroy bolted with her.

  
"Hey, wait!" Ruby called

  
Belle was speechless, reduced to spluttering. Leroy yelled, "Gotta go!"

  
"Your breakfast!"

  
Belle heard Leroy groan, but he followed her out, regardless. Clutching her wallet to her chest, she ran blindly.

  
"Whoa, hold up, sister, Where are you going? Are you going to _Gold_?"

  
Was she? Belle looked around, having trouble focusing. "Yes." she said. "Let's go to him. He'll know what to do."

  
"What if he... I dunno. Kills it? Or _accidentally_ steps on it or something?"

  
"Leroy! He wouldn't."

  
("stupid stinky wallet!")

  
"This is freaking me out, sister."

  
Belle had to agree.

  
"Can we...?" she felt so weird, asking. "Can we go to your place? Just to... have a moment."

  
Leroy looked a little dubious, then said, "It's in a _wallet_. I guess it shouldn't care too much that my place is a dump."

  
He took off at a fast trundle, and Belle scurried alongside. She couldn't think... it was worse than the fox and the owl. It was as if the buzzing of wires and boxes was in her head, and it kept insisting on a repeating, wordless question mark. Loudly.

  
"Jeepers." Belle said, once at their destination. Leroy's place really was sort of a dump. She was expecting small but cozy. It was small but dank. With a distinct odor of wood rot and cigarette smoke.

  
"Oh, I know, sister. You're living with the Grand Poobah, now. But I know you've seen worse."

  
Belle made no comment, too distracted and wired to go digging into the Lacey files. She and Leroy settled on the edge of his couch, and she gingerly unzipped the wallet once more.

  
The little thing sprang out, standing on the wallet's edge. Belle and Leroy, synchronized, leaned back.

  
"No close wallet!" it demanded. It shook a little digit at them.

  
"I am disturbed." Leroy whispered.

  
_"Dwarf!"_ the little thing pointed, happy in its classification.

  
Leroy looked at Belle, all furrowed brow and angry, dark eyebrows under his cap. "Well, it ain't nice." he growled. "Go ahead, take it to Gold." To the creature, he added, "We're taking you to Gold."

  
"What's Gode..?"

  
"What're _you_?" Leroy retorted.

  
But Belle thought she knew. She might know. She couldn't help but think of the little, spirit babies, those little things that she'd come to know in her dreams. Dreams fed by the Deadlands. Although... this one was rather solid and chatty.

  
"I Spret."

  
Belle and Leroy looked at one another. Belle said, "Like.... sprite? A sort of faerie? Or goblin?" Or was it _spirit_?

  
The little thing made a sneery, jack-o-lantern face. With a tiny growl, it snarled, " I _goblin_."

  
"Aw." Leroy said. "It's so cute. Wook at the widdle monster."

  
It was suddenly as big as the room. It was a floor to ceiling creature, and rather wide, as well. Its eyes were hollow lamps, googly and glowing yellow. Its mouth was a gaping maw of rows of razor teeth, through which it roared. Still synchronized, Belle and Leroy shrieked, threw up their arms and covered their heads.

  
When they could muster peeping out, lured by silence and a lack of looming presence, the creature, tiny again, was standing on Leroy's coffee table of particle board and veneer. It grinned at them, small teeth, slightly sharp canines.

  
"I get big." it said.

  
"You cut that shit out!" Leroy bellowed, standing up.

  
_"Eep!"_ yelped the little thing, and hopped-flew, grasshopper-like, into Belle's hair. "Mama." it whispered.

  
Staring at Leroy, who stared back, Belle said, "Uh-oh."

  
"Who have _you_ been messing around with?" Leroy wondered aloud.

  
"No one!" Belle said, defensively."Or... you know who. But that's nothing to do with this." Well...

  
It was climbing up tendrils of her hair, going to the top of her head.

  
"It called you 'mama'."

  
"It called you 'dwarf'."

  
_"Dwarf!"_ it crowed from within Belle's hair.

  
"I think you've lost your mind, Lace. Faeries. Goblins."

  
Belle only stared. She almost said, _Really, dearie_? She self-edited, and said, "Leroy. _Look_. What do you think it is?"

  
With an offended, slightly frightened face, Leroy considered the little being atop Belle's head. It was humming to itself while, perhaps, nesting.

  
One bulky shoulder shrugged. "I dunno, sister. Maybe some sort of monkey?"

  
"I've read about denial, but - truly, Leroy - this is fascinating."

  
"Right there, sister. You sounded just like him."

  
With a roll of her eyes, noting a content, little sigh from above, Belle asked, "What about the fact that we both saw it do something straight out of 'Ghostbusters' ?"

  
"Oh, shit." Leroy paled. "Do you think it's a ghost?"

  
Why was 'ghost' more credible than 'faerie', Belle wondered. But she didn't know what it was, in spite of her suspicions.... and she _had_ called the others 'spirit babies'.

  
".... Maybe." she allowed. "I don't think it's a monkey, anyway. Given that it just appeared in my wallet."

  
"Why you got a monkey-ghost in your wallet?"

  
"Stuck in wallet."

  
"I have no earthly idea." Belle said.

  
"Mama smell _nice._ "

  
Leroy gave her another wild, black-eyed look. Belle foresaw some drinking in his future. "Alright." she said, with finality. "I'm going to Ru... Mr. Gold."

  
"What's _Gohhhde_?"

  
Standing back, giving a wide berth as Belle stood, Leroy muttered, "Gold's the baby daddy."

  
The creature crawled and climbed down to Belle's shoulder, where it once again shook a digit at Leroy.

  
"Hey, now." Leroy held his hands up to the tiny face of consternation.

  
"No. It's Wumpel... _Wumpelsss_..." It was having trouble with the long name. In alarm, Belle said, "Okay. There, there. We should be going."

  
"... Wumpelssss..."

  
"Leroy... Could you _please_ not be the town crier?"

  
"What... are you kidding me, sister? I can't keep something like this to myself. I'll come unglued. I'll get constipation. It's bad for the aura."

  
"Oh, Leroy. What would you even say? It'll just sound nuts."

  
Thinking about it, Leroy tried, "Lacey's got a talking, ghost-monkey thing, the size of a Pez dispenser in her wallet. It called her 'mama'." He frowned.

  
The ghost-monkey burst into little trills of laughter that Leroy and Belle found disquieting. It said, "I ain't never in my life...."

  
"Oh, cripes." Leroy breathed. "I feel like I'm having the screaming heebe jeebies."

  
Belle nodded, and the little thing practiced, " _Heebie_ jeebie. _Heebie_ jeebie."

  
"Please, Leroy."

  
"I'll try, sister. I don't know."

 


	19. Baby Daddy

By and large, these Cursed people were an incurious lot. One could purchase duct tape and rope after nightfall, bundled against the cold and wet, and no one blinked an eye. Just another Valentine's Day.

  
But there were pockets of query. Snow, with her wakeful but confused Prince on her periphery, seemed always to be looking inward. She seemed to sense that there was movement beneath the surface, mysteries to uncover. Monsters in the deep. According to Emma, the Book of Stories, tales of the homeland, had simply appeared to Snow. By coincidence or instinct, she'd given it to the boy, who now woke an unusual line of query within Emma.

  
Could it be called magic?

  
And the boy's belief, his faith in what he believed to be true; bringing the savior to town... Could _that_ be called magic?

  
The shop was closed for the day. Rumpelstiltskin was in something of a quiet cyclone of disturbance, and needed calm. He needed to think, in a loose, unwinding, not necessarily linear or logical way... so that rather than dots connecting, unexpected pieces of puzzle might manifest and fall into place. He needed to be on a roof, casting.

  
Belle did that sort of thinking easily enough, but he found it harder in this world. He wondered, sometimes, if the Curse of his own devising was turning on him. Maybe his insides were changing to match his cool, rational and uncompromising exterior. Imagination, the doorway to magic, was edging closed.

  
He retreated to his basement, where lurked his spinning wheel. Light filtered in through leaded, glass windows, made green and watery by a profusion of fern and ivy. For Belle, those were plants of spirit, old deities and faerie.... her new idea of faerie, which differed greatly from his experience. He'd found himself to have a surprisingly green thumb in this world. (Perhaps all of his former greenness was concentrated into the power of one digit.) Fingers dug into the fertile, black earth, he was lulled nearly as much as could happen at his wheel. He was undisturbed by earthworms and spiders; those that stepped carefully on needle legs or those more squat and furred, that scurried and ran.

  
But did any of it serve magic?

  
Most of the time, especially in the long duration when Belle was lost inside of Lacey, he felt bereft of magic. A shockingly naked feeling that caused him to layer his fine wardrobe upon his body and to cozy, bolster his home with textiles. Sometimes it caused him to snarl, a cornered dog. He'd worked preemptive campaigns of terror, establishing himself as untouchable. Without magic, he'd lost a certain ability to relax.

  
Going through the laborious process of setting up his wheel, drive wheel and maiden and bobbin, he considered the dagger. An owl and a fox, indeed. He'd spent some time in the early morning simply holding it, touching it. In mimicry of Belle, he'd hovered his hand just over it, eyes closed in concentration.

  
Yes, he could _feel_. He felt the power of it, the magic it contained. Should he lay it on his chest, he would feel it that much more. Although it was cold metal, he felt a life force. It was himself, he thought. It must be his own life force, married to that of the Dark One. The two of them were the double helix that became one entity; the rippled, curving shape of the dagger.

  
For all that he could feel, he could not access it. It was locked to him, and he was as any other Cursed person in Storybrooke. Locked out. Not so, Belle. Was it the spell that had followed her, leaving its imprint within her skin? Had he misjudged her from the start?

  
Spinning, it was hard to dismiss fate. Ideas about fate. Strands of life, the warp and weft, beginnings, endings, intersections and crossroads. All of these things found symbols (and power) within spinning and weaving. Within the spun web of a spider.

  
Rather than having stumbled onto a summoning spell, long forgotten and disguised as a nursery rhyme; was it fated that Belle call him? Had she magic of her own, perhaps to marry to his... and was that fated?

  
She was in a whirl, since the dagger. She babbled, her thinking so loose and non-linear, he felt rather overwhelmed with imagery. Serpent figures and symbols of all sorts of antiquity could be tied to the dagger, to magic. To witches. He was as startled as she to see, in the myths and religions of this world, names she'd written down in their own world.

  
It was she, he reminded himself, who had led him here. She who noted 'Orion", thus delivering him to this world, where walked Baelfire. He walked beneath the Hunter and his Dog.

  
"Rumpel?"

  
He stopped the wheel. He was only thinking, going over unorganized information... but with the sound of Belle's voice her realized he'd very nearly been _away_. He was much subdued, almost in trance.

  
"Down here, dearie." he called.

  
She soon appeared in the stairwell, treading rather carefully. Before she reached the landing, Rumpelstiltskin could tell that something was amiss, awry. Belle was unsettled; worry marked her face and simmered on her skin.

  
"What is it, love?" he asked.

  
"Something happened."

  
She came level to him at the wheel. Things had _been_ happening; foxes and owls, daggers and books. It was reasonable to assume more of the same, but Rumpelstiltskin felt himself bristle and bypass such assumption. Her worry made his sight begin to go red, and he waited to hear whom he would need to kill... what unfortunate soul had caused her worry. He rather looked forward to it.

  
But then an indescribable, little someone popped out of Belle's hair, and said, _"Daddy!_ " Tiny, tiny, little rasp of a voice.

  
Certainly it was unexpected. His mind briefly raced with theories that sprang solidly from this world... Belle had trained some simian, rodent thing to speak. Maybe it was from Australia. She was good with the natural world, and for some reason it had pleased her to make it call him "daddy". Although his own fatherhood had been defined by "papa".

  
Or.. It was a toy, even better. Belle brought home one of the cunning, amazing, lifelike toys of this world. A cyborg-robot-drone-thingie. It ran on batteries and induced transient ischemic attack with its realism.

  
Looking sheepish, still worried, Belle said, "It calls me 'mama'."

  
_"Wumpelsss..."_

  
Oh, lord. Rumpelstiltskin said, "Good gracious." What else was she going to bring home?

  
It hopped from Belle to his wheel, giving him a painful start. He followed it with his eyes, jaw slack.

  
"What...? What is it?"

  
"I Spret."

  
"I thought you might know. I think 'Spret' is like 'sprite'... like a faerie."

  
Puffing out its chest, the little being said, "Aye. Us Gentry, of the hill. And hell."

  
Well. "Not any faerie I've known." Rumpelstiltskin said. "They're not generally so wee. Or furry. Or quick to reference Hell."

  
"I told you... it's different, here."

  
"Belle..." He looked at her with a glazed amazement. He looked back at the little thing that perched on his wheel... it seemed to be softly swearing to itself as it picked at fibers. "Those are tales. Stories."

  
"But, _look_." Her hands showcased the Spret; one of his old moves.

  
Rumpelstiltskin nodded. One couldn't really argue the presence of something so very different. It was so tiny a thing, and its face was confused between kitten, monkey and person. Its eyes were huge, and liquid black. Its body was quite humanoid, but exaggerated. It was skinny-limbed and scrawny necked, but its head seem a tad big, sort of onion shaped. It had a very round, little belly, from which protruded an outward navel. So, mammalian, presumably. From head to toe it was covered in soft looking, walnut colored fur. The fur at the ends of its toes curled up, and looked like little, elfin slippers.

  
"And why did it call me 'daddy'?"

  
"Daddy. Wumpelsss."

  
It had his attention.

  
"I'm only guessing." Belle said, "But doesn't it seem like there could be a connection to the spirit babies... of the Deadlands?"

  
Trance time was over. Rumpelstiltskin began to make the wheel turn very slowly, so he could watch the impling walk upon it. The Spret seemed to like it... it emitted a cat-like trill and purr. And an odd, quiet clicking sound.

  
"They were... dream stuff." Rumpelstiltskin said. "Real, but ephemeral. Transient, changing with nature. _This_..."

  
"I know." Belle said.

  
"Where did it come from?"

  
"I have no idea. It was trapped in my wallet."

  
"I stuck in wallet."

  
"I heard it while I was at Granny's. And... Leroy, too. I'm sorry, Rumpel. He saw it."

  
Rumpelstiltskin gave a small shrug. What could one do? People saw things they couldn't explain... they then either concocted a feasible explanation of some sort, or they forgot. In truth, with the goal of breaking the Curse, he didn't care how many people began to wonder if all was not as it appeared... it was Regina's problem. Not his.

  
So, you were at Granny's, and this Spret spontaneously manifested in your wallet."

  
"It would seem."

  
"From where?" Rumpelstiltskin wondered.

  
"From dagger." said the Spret, and then made a sibilant sound. His little body and hands made snakey, belly dancer moves.

  
Rumpelstiltskin, chilled, glanced at Belle. She shook her head, nonplussed. She also looked spooked. "I should tell you," she said, "When it wants to, it can get really big and _really_ scary."

  
The Spret gave a snarling smile, making it's hands into claws.

  
"Is that right?" Rumpelstiltskin smiled. Maybe he would like this Spret. The bugaboo grinned with him, and said, "Wumpelsss."


	20. The Witch and the Serpent

When Belle next saw Leroy, he seemed nervous. She passed him on her way to the library, and his eyes were a touch wide. Too much white. He said, "Hey, girl. Hey." She was getting so familiar with energy; Leroy's crackled.

  
"Hi Leroy."

  
"What's the haps?"

  
"Oh, you know."

  
"Right." Leroy took off his cap and scratched his head. He looked like he wanted to say something; perhaps confess, Belle thought.

  
Tom Clark called out Leroy's name from across the street, and Leroy's head whipped around in undisguised relief. "Yo!"

  
Belle started to move on even before Leroy, but she heard him say, "See ya, sister."

  
"Bye, boy. Bye."  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
In the quiet of the library, in her chair, she read it again. People were going to think she was a religious nut, a zealot. It couldn't be helped.

  
There was nothing new. People lived for absurd amounts of time, (Rumpelstiltskin notwithstanding), and begat a confusing array of other people with overlapping names. Was the Lamech who was Noah's father the same Lamech who took two wives? (Lucky Lamech, his friends called him.)

  
She focused on Cain. _Maybe_ the son of The Serpent. It made her prickly, for she felt a sympathy, not unlike her feeling that perhaps The Serpent was judged in an unjust manner. Her homeland may not have been steeped in religion, but it had certainly placed a distinction between good and evil... it was troubling that, here, she kept sidling up to evil. Hiya, Evil. _Reputed evil_ , she could hear Rumpelstiltskin say. Perhaps she _should_ be troubled; look who she'd chosen as her partner.

  
The deity, in Lacey's lingo, dissed Cain's agricultural offering. Evidently, it preferred blood, which struck Belle as a little off. Or perhaps an animal offering was considered the bigger sacrifice. (So, you love me. But how _much_ do you love me?) Cain is aggrieved, and the deity more or less says, hey - suck it up. Learn, and do better next time. Cain has jealous words with Abel, and then up and kills him. He's found out. (Abel's blood cries out to the deity from the ground). He's banished... in the beginning, it seemed everything was to the East. The Garden lay in the Eastern part of Eden. Cain is banished to Nod, said to be East of Eden. But also, maybe, simply wandering.

  
A mark is set upon him. Should anyone kill him, he will be avenged, sevenfold.

  
So.

  
She wished she had her writings from home.... the gibberish writing that had so upset, and then inflamed Rumpelstiltskin. She thought it had spoken of Cain as The Rider... but she'd also come to associate The Rider with Rumpelstiltskin. _Darkness_ Rider, wandering this earth, building and musing unto himself. As Cain built a city, naming it for his son, Enoch. (And where did Mrs Cain hail from, in this new world of new people?)

  
_Inside the rider was Cain, horns upon his brow_.... Was that the mark? He had other names... _he was centuries old and had died more than once. He'd gained knowledge._

  
Belle tapped her pinkie-finger and thumb back and forth on her denim clad thigh, thinking. Thumpidy-thumpidy-thumpidy. Like Leroy, her energy crackled. If "Nod" was wandering, maybe the cursed and banished Cain had actually found other worlds.

Maybe he began in this world, but learned portals, or magic. If whoever killed him would be avenged sevenfold, then perhaps that was the Curse of the Dark One. The one who killed Cain _became_ Cain... the demon, if demon it was, lived on in the body of the killer. Joined life-forces. It would mean an eternity of a deity's curse, banishment to wander, desolation; but also all of the acquired knowledge and power of lifetimes.

  
And the mark, if passed on... might come from the instrument of death, the dagger. The Dark One's dagger? It took on the killer's name, it corrupted flesh. It made monsters, and could compel the Dark One.

  
And seemed to be created in the image of a serpent, possibly part of the Dark One's lineage.

  
Belle, while decidedly creeped out, was beginning to feel a certain satisfaction... an almost-cohesion of story. But there were questions. Such as the little Spret, who so clearly seemed a part of the faerie lore of this world. How was it associated with the dagger?

  
It said it was "Gentry"... people of the hill, and hell.

  
Belle thought of the Hollow Hills in the Deadlands, and of how she'd dreamed there. She'd worked her spell there. The Underground of a Goblin Queen, an Underworld, such as the Alices of this world visit... perhaps seen as Hell? Rumpelstiltskin, to protect himself, had buried the dagger. Maybe the force of the dagger connected with Underworld beings...

  
Reaching into Lacey's owl back-pack, she retrieved a notebook. As she'd tried to remember names from her writing, she really hadn't known where to start in the library. She'd taken her cause to Ruby's lap-top, and now had a loose diagram of witchiness and goddesses to consider.

  
Snakes were a surprise. The culture of this world was permeated with notions of a serpent image as _The_ Devil, though Belle didn't find quite so literal a connection in the religious writings. It was by no means a beloved creature. Her own encounter with the frog eating snake left her feeling a bit nauseous about the actual reptile, even if she felt some injustice for Eve's serpent. She'd looked at pictures; their eyes, their unhinging jaws, the way they slowly swallowed something whole, no matter the protest... their whip-fast movement and scenting tongues... their cold bloodedness; all of these things woke a jumpiness inside her. She didn't wish to encounter another snake in the woods... they were too alien. She might get a case of Leroy's screaming heebie jeebies.

  
And yet, in the world of myth and tales of magic, they were everywhere. Some languages used the same word for "snake" and "fortune teller". Another language used the word "seraphim" to describe a grouping of angels, while "sereph" or "seraph" meant "snake".

  
Another translation of the early languages of the Christian bible showed the words for "snake", "life/breath" and "teaching" as all related to the name, "Eve"; "Eva" or "Heva". This discovery brought Belle to some of the beliefs that existed before Christianity, Judaism and Islam were widespread; and then the imagery and history of woman and serpent exploded.

  
Eve, she began to think, was foretold. Or she was scapegoated as the bearer of old beliefs, trying to exist within the new. Before the deity, the god who formed the world from a void, there were goddesses.

  
Some were _truly_ terrifying, some beautiful and benevolent. In the oldest stories, they were both. Their companions, their guardians and consorts, their symbols of power, magic and healing were snakes.

  
Snakes were symbols of the Underworld; their magic allowed passage there and returned one to the world of the living. Knowledge, brought back up, into the light. No wonder, Belle thought, it was a serpent who came to Eve, who was possibly a goddess, herself. he specifically brought her knowledge. Enlightenment.

  
He made her aware, so that she knew herself. According to the religious writings, this made her god-like. It was Rumpelstiltskin, she thought, who woke her to herself. To her body, to their connection. To magic.

  
She'd found some of the strange names she'd written; Inanna, Ishtar; with Ruby's lap-top. There was such an overlapping of the names and histories of goddesses... it was even more convoluted and certainly more sketchy than the biblical writings. But, when she found photographs of artifacts; little pieces of statuary and pottery; there they were. Bare breasted women, brandishing serpents. Wild women, with retinues of animals and birds.

  
For the life of her, Belle could not make a solid connection of serpent to Dark One, unless it was an allusion to parentage, in spite of the obvious shape of the dagger. But certainly she could connect serpents to women, to _witches_ , in particular. To magic, and magic that sprang from an Underworld. To herself, in her desire to learn, to know.

  
She was struck, quite suddenly, with a memory of a sort of fever dream she'd had while in the Dark Castle. Where did it come from, she wondered? There was no serpent, no dagger -unknown to her then - in the dream. There was, however, the Dark One. There was a version of herself, perhaps even more primitive than the self she thought of as a Goblin Queen. It was a Belle who lay naked, open-legged and bleeding moon-blood in the courtyard. On flagstones, hot from the sun.

  
That woman, that self had called, _lured_ Rumpelstiltskin with her blood. He'd come to her, naked as she, and - in her memory - Belle could see the serpentine nature of his movements... of his skin. The almost circling, scenting stalk, the roll of his shoulders, the sway of his spine as he went between her legs and drank deep.

  
A shiver went through her with a small violence. She realized that, curled in her chair and surrounded by fairly esoteric books, she had rocketed into a state of arousal. Self conscious, she dropped her hand to her notebook... her fingers had strayed to touch her lips.

  
Sex, she supposed, could have a serpentine nature. She shivered again, uncertain as to why her mind had taken this turn. Certainly Rumpelstiltskin's cock could be serpentine; standing, seeking heat. Seeking her. His tongue, nimble and flickering its tip to hers could be alarmingly serpentine.

  
What was happening? Belle glanced about, feeling the heat that had risen to her cheeks and chest. Her nipples had hardened and were irritated by her bra. Could anyone _see_ what was happening to her? She touched her lips again, the swell of them shockingly sensitive, echoing the swell of her sex. In her curl, the gusset seam of her jeans pressed to her sex... the throb of her clitoris against the thick, unyielding seam was almost unbearable.

  
Had she done this to herself? The sudden opening of memory seemed to then open a floodgate of feelings, images that she couldn't stop. And, as much as she wanted to _see_ Rumpelstiltskin, her mind and body was abruptly overtaken with memories of his body in the dark. She was reliving the memories, rapid-fire, and all of her conscious will was applied to _not_ rocking her hips, to _not_ moaning aloud.

  
... His handling of her in the dark night, his mouth on hers, at her throat, her breasts. Oh, gods, his fingers inside her, pumping fast, her mind rollicking in a haze of heat and slickness, awash in his rising scent... dragon's blood, sweet; growing hotter, honey and storms, smoke.

  
_Musk_. Belle could smell it, even in the library. A scent of sex, like licked skin over hot blood. Heat that over-rode a soapy scent at his pubic hair, the sex scent at his cock... She was _smelling_  it, as if he stood beside her, caressing his cock to her face.

  
She thought she might die. She wanted to pack her things and go home, little Spret or no. She felt desperate for Rumpelstiltskin's kiss, his cock, but she couldn't make herself move. She was so close, she realized with fascinated horror, to orgasm. Any little motion, and she would double over, contractions of pleasure and pain rendering her helpless. Lacey's rather public past reared up, leaving Belle mortified.

  
Redirect, she thought. Granny's. Bird poop. The scissoring in half of frozen hamsters.

  
The snake and the frog.

  
It was difficult. Feelings, images retreated, faded in intensity... only to come surging back. She _felt_. It seemed beyond imagining, beyond some as-yet untried, pornographic, self-hypnosis. Was it a serpent seduction? Was _this_ something that Eve, whoever she might have been, experienced?

  
Belle felt Rumpelstiltskin rocking into her... she felt the night-time move around them, within them. She felt the way that their physical bodies, locked together, blocked out everything else. It was only the two of them, feeling.

  
Desperate, she turned to energy work. A different route of self-hypnosis. She conjured scents she found pleasant, but not particularly sexual. Rosemary, lavender, lime... cool, camphor sorts of scents that she mentally infused into her body. She imagined the calming of her energy... her body growing roots made of light... they spilled over the chair, sank through the library's foundation and drained her madness into the earth.

  
After some concentrated moments of the exercise, she was able to pack her bag and head shakily home. She still burned... her body was still very much awake, humming with need. But she'd somewhat curtailed the intensity of feeling, the rush of image and scent.

  
She'd driven the serpent back underground.


	21. Gizzard

Rumpelstiltskin and the Spret got along famously. It wasn't exactly what Belle had expected, and she found it amusing as well as disconcerting.

  
She came home to find Rumpelstiltskin in his study, a warm room filled with wood, leather and books... the fireplace crackled merrily and flared bright against brass fixtures on lamps, drawer pulls. Outside, all was sunless gloom... no true rain, but a constant, chilly mist. Sycamore leaves crab-walked down the streets and sidewalks, taking Belle, again, to the courtyard of the Dark Castle; the site of events both real and dreamed. She was in a pent-up, cold and damp state, wanting only to relieve Rumpelstiltskin of his clothing and ride him. She needed her new burst of madness to be jolted into submission.

  
It wasn't to be, it seemed. At least, not with the immediacy she desired. She was grateful to come into the cheerful, albeit very masculine room, and to sink to the floor before the fire, letting it bake her bones. She was pleased, intrigued to see that Rumpelstiltskin was speaking with the Spret. It was, however, also a little vexing, just at the moment.

  
"We missed you, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin said, and Belle was surprised that, in her absence, he and the Spret had become " _we_ ".

  
"Mama. _Belle_."

  
Belle gave a smile-frown, and was surprised all over again as Rumpelstiltskin chuckled warmly at the Spret. It was perched on his forefinger, bird-like, and seemed utterly content. It swayed a bit, as if on a rocker.

  
"I has name." It told Belle.

  
She blinked. "Really? Did you name it, Rumpel?"

  
"Him, dearie. No, he was already named. He just told me... Gizzard."

  
_"Gizzard_? As in... gizzard?"

  
"Indeed."

  
"How do you know he's a .... he?"

  
"Gizzard _boy_." The Spret was adamant. A little offended.

  
"Oh. I see."

  
Another Rumpel-chuckle, indulgent. How weird. His attitude with Gizzard was not unlike the way he communed with Chloe.

  
"Were you fruitful on your library outing?"

  
"Somewhat. What have you and Gizzard been doing?"

  
He didn't have wings, at least none that Belle could see, but the Spret seemed to launch himself from his Rumpelstiltskin perch. He was a blur in the air, and came to land on her knee.

  
"Hello." Belle said.

  
Gizzard had a pleased, swelled little countenance. He said, "Us play with dagger, I and Wumpelsss."

  
Belle looked to Rumpelstiltskin in question, and he confirmed, "True enough, love. Gizzard is very crafty about its magic. He can unlock it, actually, and pull magic out."

  
"Like spinning." Gizzard added. "Us spin."

  
Belle was stunned. While she'd been awash in _words_ , perhaps forming something solid, but perhaps not, Rumpelstiltskin had found magic. With her little wallet traveler.

  
"You... you have magic, now?"

  
His smile was so broad. He used to share that smile all the time, mouth full of awful teeth. Belle had seldom seen it in Storybrooke... Though Ruby had other ideas, Belle saw Rumpelstiltskin's human face as very handsome, full of charms... the big smile exuded warmth, and evoked the surprise of seduction she'd felt in the library. The fire at her back seeped heat into her spine, almost to hot on her skin.

  
"Only a bit." Rumpelstiltskin said, "But, yes. Gizzard opened the way to the magic the dagger possesses."

  
It hit Belle, then, that Rumpelstiltskin was tipsy. Her eyes finally took in the sparkle of a cut, crystal decanter, its pregnant belly full of a deep, amber liquid. Over the scent of wood-smoke and fire, she began to take in a different sort of fire. He was celebrating.

  
She smiled. "Look at you."

  
"I'm well pleased, dearie."

  
"I can see that."

  
Gizzard still sat on her knee, looking from one of them to the other, like watching a tennis match. Belle noted how closely attuned he was... not only to each individual, but to the relationship. It was as if he made impish, little notes, and Belle wondered over it.

  
"Can you show me?" she asked him. "How you spin?"

  
_"Yes yes yes."_

  
Eager little thing, he zipped his way back to Rumpelstiltskin, who sat at his broad, wooden desk. Belle followed, and all three stared at the dagger lying on the gloss of the desk's surface. Belle saw the three of them reflected, as if staring out of a world of darkness. They looked like ghosts. The dagger was somewhat doubled, a silver, watery shimmer.

  
Gizzard went to work. He sat cross-legged alongside the blade, and Belle, close to his still form, studied him. She realized that little tufts of fur at the sides of his head were ears... she added _bat_ to the growing list of fauna he seemed to represent. His little shoulders were so bony, collar bones showing in relief against his fur... his shoulder blades protruded and moved as he made hand motions over the dagger. But his little belly... he was chubby, there, and it sat comfortably in his lap.

  
He closed his eyes, and the motions of his tiny, furred hands changed; the motions became pulling, as if reeling in a rope, attached to an object. He made a low, purring sound. His eyes opened, and when they did, the magic became visible to Belle. Hand over hand, Gizzard pulled out strands of something like spider webbing. They seemed to uncoil from the blade, and the blade, itself, seemed more mutable. It looked molten, holding its shape and yet softening, glowing. It birthed. Ripples moved through it, as if contractions.

  
The strands glowed as well, and shimmered with variations in color. Pretty magic, Belle thought. Silvery-green, golden-pink. Colors of water, of sunsets and sky. Gizzard truly did spin, beginning to wind the strands into a little ball of magic. It pulsed; it lived.

  
As they watched Gizzard at work, feeling his deep content, a heaviness he simmered into the air, Belle felt Rumpelstiltskin's arm come around her. He encircled her waist, bringing her close to his seated body. His hand moved to stroke her back, and - surprising her - roamed over her bottom. He _was_ happy. It wasn't his usual mode when they were not alone, and Belle glanced at him. He seemed completely absorbed in Gizzard's actions; dreamy, even. His hand roamed absently, fingers grazing briefly where her legs met; the seam that had been so hateful, earlier.

  
Then he held her close, again, and Belle watched as Gizzard leaned into the sparkly strand... and _bit._ He severed it with his teeth, and as the filament sank back into the dagger, the dagger became more solid looking. He held the little ball of magic... little to Belle, but an armful for Gizzard.

  
"Magic." he said. "For Wumpelsss."

  
Rumpelstiltskin said, "Thank you, dearie." He produced a little vial, already containing some of the dagger-shimmer. Gizzard deposited the new batch, and Rumpelstiltskin stoppered it.


	22. The Witch and the Serpent 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Standard train warnings apply*

Rumpelstiltskin had taken to coming to Belle's bed at night, as had happened in the Dark Castle. As so much did, it felt different to Belle, in Storybrooke. He tended to simply follow her, dog-like, rather than arriving as she began to drift into dream. It was rather cozy... it was the sort of thing she'd once imagined of her parents. Chit-chat, the turning down of bedclothes, preparing for night and sleep.

  
He no longer clothed himself in suit-like pajamas at night, and yet he was often modest as compared to before. No matter that she'd _seen_ him, _touched_ him. Once naked, it wasn't unusual that he was quickly under the covers, bedclothes up over his nipples. Belle wondered if he was more acutely aware of his nakedness in his paler skin.

  
It was funny to watch him in his tipsy state. He seemed briefly flummoxed by his tie, before the pieces clicked into place and he loosened it. His face betrayed a frowning moment of... _what is it_?

  
They'd left Gizzard on his own, which made Belle fretful. He seemed to prefer it, however. He was semi-nocturnal, and liked to roam both the house and the outside. Earlier that morning, Belle had found him asleep, in a squirrel-ish curl, wrapped around the cord that plugged in the coffee pot. When he woke, he grinned at her. "Likes buzz." he said.

  
It gave her a turn. She thought he must mean electricity, the buzz that so disturbed her. It disoriented and even alienated. How odd it seemed that a little being of magic would _like_ it... Or, did he mean the coffee?

  
She'd also discovered that he liked to eat match-heads. "Little weirdo." she told him.

  
" _Weeer-doh_."

  
"Right. That's you."

  
Unconcerned about his weirdness, he'd gone on munching match-heads, burnt and ashy, the side of plums in his little hands. He made happy, yummy sounds. " _Mm_... (trill, purr, smack)... Mm, good."

  
"I feel funny." Belle said, undressing, across the bed from Rumpelstiltskin.

  
"You _are_ funny."

  
This was the sexy part, she thought. She paid attention. Buttons undone at throat and wrists, shirt untucked, long fingers beginning the trek down his torso. "I mean, I feel funny that Gizzard just roams at night. He should be tucked into a nest, or a tiny bed. Safe and sound."

  
Rumpelstiltskin's smile was unaccountably wicked.

  
"What?" Belle asked.

  
Torso bared, he crawled over the bed in dark trousers and sock feet. Belle felt a flip-flop in her belly, a flutter, and then a heavy feeling that sank low. He was sinuous, crawling to her side with that _look._

  
"He's not a baby." he said.

  
"He calls me 'mama'."

  
"Aye. We made him... so that he's able to be here, with us. But he's old. He's like a little, old man. He's been around awhile, Belle, to understand the dagger. He's like trees... roots...."

  
It was his theory that Gizzard, an underworld being, had come through the dagger in spirit, and peeked at Belle from the electricity that so disturbed her, and which Gizzard seemed to love. To feed on, even. He'd looked at her as a being of information. From there ensued a complexity of magic, body fluids and math for which Belle had little patience, Lacey even less. It was a nontraditional parentage; a multi-staged birth.

  
"But.."

  
"Come here, love."

  
He'd settled on her side of the bed, feet on the floor. Belle had gotten her bra off, and was unconsciously massaging her side, just below her underarms, where the underwire dug into her. The posture was a little ape-like, she realized, feeling foolish. ( _ooh!_ _ooh!_ ) But Rumpelstiltskin only cared about her breasts. He pulled her close, his hands replacing hers, thumbs pressing and massaging right where the wire had been cruel; hands comforting, warm at her sides. His hands edged forward, thumbs beneath her breasts, splayed fingers beginning to grasp flesh. He leaned forward and took one nipple to suckle.

  
Belle gasped... gods, she was so ready. She swayed on her feet and put steadying hands on Rumpelstiltskin's shoulders. As her fingers moved into his hair, he switched breasts. " _Mmm_..." he murmured.

  
It was something of a mystery to belle, the breast fixation. The suckling of a milk-less bosom; his deep content and arousal to do so. She'd once tried to question him about it, noting that her breasts were really just, well, fat. What was so alluring?  
His look had been aghast. "You needn't analyze _everything_." he'd told her. "Some things simply _are_. Don't ruin it, dearie."

  
There must be _some_ reason for it, she thought, for it felt so good to her. He laved and suckled and squeezed, lost in his own world of tactile warmth, like the sensuality of kissing. For Belle, it was the feeling of pleasure-pain she'd come to love, to associate with his handling of her. She felt the pull at her breast, hurtful when his suckle was deep, darkening her nipple. It was also a pull that went down her middle, hot at her sex.

  
When he touched and kissed different parts of her, it was as if a grid of pleasure was mapped out on her body. It hummed with life, it glowed orange-red. It made her compliant with anticipation, vivid with need.

  
"Oh, Rumpel," she breathed. "please... I can't wait."

  
He looked up at her, lips wet and smiling. His hands squeezed the bounty of her bosom.

  
"Oh.. indeed, dearie? Have you a need?"

  
She leaned down and kissed him, a soft brush of the lips, stepping out of her bottoms as she did so.

  
" _Mmm_.." Rumpelstiltskin approved. His hands slid down her body, a warm path over ribs, dipping into her waist, flaring to her hips. Belle righted herself as he pulled her close, his hands sliding to her backside. He grabbed handfuls of bum, as he'd done with her breasts. He squeezed and kneaded, mouth again suckling her. It made Belle whimper, her internal grid so lit, the hum becoming shrill. One of his hands moved from its hold on her bum to the back of her thigh, then between her legs. His long fingers slid against wetness and teased the throb of her aching bud with presence, not gratifying with touch. The tip of his middle finger pressed at her opening, going inside only a little, maddening to the swollen, sensitive flesh. Belle squirmed, another little whine, whimper showing her anxiousness.

  
"You _do_ have a need." Rumpelstiltskin purred. "Do you want me to help you, love?"

  
She could hardly play along. In the actual presence and feeling of Rumpelstiltskin, the madness that had overtaken her in the library was in full swing. She lifted one knee to rest on the bed, somewhat straddling him. Braced on his shoulders, she pushed her hips back so that more of his finger slid inside her. Her eyes closed, so heavy, her vision hazed and darkened with lust. She pulsed hotly around him, and yet he still teased. His finger made a slow, shallow thrust, often pulling out and stroking lightly over the heat and swell of her sex.

  
"Poor dearie."

  
" _Rumpel_.."

  
"Come here, Belle." He said, his hands at her hips, her sex aching for the absence of his touch. He lay back on the bed, feet still on the floor, and prodded her to crawl over him, moving over the bed. It felt rude to Belle, landing in a position of straddling his face on her hands and knees. Her need was such that she ignored the rudeness, thinking of the times Rumpelstiltskin knelt over her in a similar manner, feeding his cock into her mouth with gentle thrusts. The thought inflamed her further, and she moaned as she felt his hands at the backs of her thighs, fingers sliding in wetness as he opened her. The night air felt strange against her fevered skin, where she was so exposed. Her hips tilted back, as though she waited to be filled. It placed her little bud in easy reach of Rumpelstiltskin's mouth... Belle nearly went mad as she felt his lips close softly around it.

  
" _Mmm_..." he purred. His tongue moved lightly, tasting; sensitive and flickering. A finger stole back inside her, this time penetrating fully. Belle gasped, bucking back against it in a little spasm, and she moaned aloud as his mouth resumed its soft suckle at her clitoris.

  
For some moments, she was in darkness, her eyes closed, mouth opened. She heard her own hitching breath, and Rumpelstiltskin's near-constant growl-purr. One of his hands held to her hip, its grip almost painful. With the other he thrust... his fingers pumped inside of her fast, making her blind. Belle found that as she rode against him, it moved her hot, little bud within the clasp of his suckle. It made sparks, angst. She felt a sense of shame to use him so, but she couldn't stop. She pressed herself to his willing, open mouth.

  
She felt herself tighten around him, her body nearly still except for the subtle rocking that made such an anxious, delirious feeling at her clitoris. His lips and tongue moved so softly there. To her dismay, he pulled his fingers from her... she might cry, so high strung had she become.

  
Both hands on her hips, he tilted his head back. His tongue laved over her fully, flattened and soft. Wet. It's tip fluttered and lapped about her opening, then - again - made the long, flat, sinuous and muscled lick that ended with a soft kiss to her troubled bud.

  
Belle's fingers gripped the bedclothes, sensations moving through her body with new force. Her face burned, and she felt as if her sex was utterly wanton. She lost the sense of what Rumpelstiltskin did, how he worked her... she was aware only of _heat_ and _wet_ , the long lick and suckle. She squirmed against his open mouth, his tongue, her body driving her to direct him where he was needed.

  
She also lost a sense of the room, her surroundings. She was in a hazy darkness until a little flicker of his tongue, an unbearable tease at her opening sent something like a beam, a bolt of light up her middle, into her head. In that strange, transitioning moment, he recaptured her clitoris. He suckled, a pulsing sort of rhythm, and the beam that lit her insides exploded... it felt like light was bursting from her pores.

  
Belle couldn't help herself. Her cry was loud and alarming, but most alarming was that she had little thought for Rumpelstiltskin. He body shook, her arms trembling, and she rocked her hips. She rode against his face. She felt his arms come around her back, his tongue muscle its way inside of her. Could he breathe? Belle wondered at a distance, but still she rode, in something of a seizure, until the shockwaves died down and her flesh became too sensitive for his touch.

  
Exhausted, dismayed, elated... she was all of these things as she rolled off of him, curling onto her side with her thighs pressed tightly together. She still felt contractions, a sort of jump at her sex, and an answering throb deep in her belly. Darkness and roaring light were at play in her head.

  
"Oh, I don't think so, dearie." she heard Rumpelstiltskin say.

  
She could hardly open her eyes. Her vision was so changed, now too bright. The room was disappearing into a white-out, its molecules charged, but there was Rumpelstiltskin. Vivid. His eyes blazed, and he was on his knees, beside her. Over her, naked and stroking his enraged cock.

  
It made Belle moan... simply to see it. A blush was high at his cheekbones and spreading over his chest. His cock stood straight up, but he stroked it downward, towards her. It, too, was over her. He wiped his face with his forearm, the scent of sex heavy in the weirdly altered room.

  
"I'm not done with you." He growled, and with some small force he opened her legs, rolling her to her back. His eyes, so dark, burned over her, into her. They settled between her legs as he moved between them, and then pushed inside.

  
Belle yelped, hips in spasm for a moment... there was resistance, as if her muscles had squeezed shut. She was so sensitive, there was almost pain. His cock, his body was insistent. He thrust, pushing past the closed barrier. Belle's yelp, the little squeak, became a gasp. Rumpelstiltskin gasped as well. He lay down over her, his mouth on hers, and he _fucked_.

  
In barely seconds the pain, the resistance had disappeared; transformed, in fact, into an escalation of pleasure. It was pleasure that would kill her, Belle thought. She felt as if her body couldn't possibly climb higher, but it did. Her blood rang in her ears, high pitched and panicked. Her body, her arms and legs wrapped around Rumpelstiltskin, her hips rocking to meet his thrust.

  
It was too much. It was like possession, the way her awareness changed. The musk; the feral, saline, salt-sugar potion that coated everything, heavy on her skin, was fed from Rumpelstiltskin's tongue to hers. A steady, harsh breath was shared between them, a puppy-like, soft whine in his throat. For a moment he slowed; he nuzzled, lips against hers, then on her face, her jaw. He groaned, and said, "You feel so good, Belle. Your pussy feels so good."

  
That organ, her _pussy_ , squeezed his cock in greedy possession when he said it. They both gasped, a spasm at the pelvis, and then he began fucking her in earnest again. Thrusts rapid fire and hard.

  
Belle couldn't kiss anymore... her head was thrown back, mouth open and muscles tensed. He pounded steadily into her, crying out with every thrust. Darkness clouded Belle's mind once more... and then it seemed as if she _burst_ into fire.

  
Her cry was pure distress and pure release, her body tight in its hold on Rumpelstiltskin. His head was buried to her neck, his cry muffled, almost a sob. Belle felt as if, for moments on end, she was suspended in a place of blinding light, filled with the roaring sound of fire. Where Rumpelstiltskin went she couldn't say, but she was tethered to him, holding on.

  
Finally, a sense of normalcy returned. _We are trauma victims_ , Belle thought. She and Rumpelstiltskin clung to each other, breathing hard and shell-shocked, as if they'd gone into battle together. Their bodies had thrown off tremendous heat; _fire_ , Belle thought; and now they shivered. They goosebumped, and sought each other's warmth like nesting animals.

  
"Covers." Belle murmured.

  
She'd found she typically had things she would do, comfort seeking things after sex and before sleep. She wanted a soft nightie. She needed to pee. Wrung out as she was, she couldn't focus on or address any of it. Rumpelstiltskin seemed to be in the same state... although she'd found he was nearly always comatose after sex. With a groan, a tremble at the hips, he let himself slip out of her. He reached to turn out the bedside lamp, and they both buried themselves under the warmth and softness of the bedclothes.

  
Belle wrapped herself around him. Soft skin to soft skin... the scent of sex caught up in his stubble, the ghost of whiskey on his breath. She might scent the charred, otherworldly scent of fire.... its sourceless smoke and aura of purification. Her ear to the ocean sound of Rumpelstiltskin's chest, she slept.

 


	23. Ghosts

Rumpelstiltskin didn't like to lie to Belle, ingrained though the habit was. But here and there, in small ways, there were things he didn't say. It had so long been a way of life... and still, as Mr. Gold, he lied everyday... pretty much about everything. It was a false world in which he lived.

  
But he didn't like to lie to Belle.

  
The things he kept... they felt like _his_. The ways he touched her when she slept, the thoughts he had regarding her relationship to magic. Ideas he was forming about Gizzard. It wasn't a desire or even need to lie, but rather a need to incubate, to nurture and ponder. He needed his hen-like brooding for a time, before bringing some things to light. Out of the darkness of his skull, the darkness of his heart, into the light.

  
... But... the touching. That was _his_. There was a very different enjoyment that came from touching Belle, watching her when she wasn't aware. It was the older part of himself, he knew... the part that didn't want her to look upon the monster, or even the man, who sometimes seemed so insufficient. He wanted moments that were unto himself, to look at her and to feel his claim upon her. He couldn't seem to change his ways in this regard, and so he stayed quiet.

  
He woke, after a brief but remarkably heavy sleep. Belle was restless beside him; dreaming, he knew. He could almost tune into her dreams as he'd done at home, but not quite. She was a vivid dreamer... her dreams were loud and cavorting, like war-painted Lost Boys, wolf boys, and their ne'er-do-well, Puckish leader. He had a suspicion that she'd dreamed Gizzard into being... or something along those lines.

  
Feeling her movement in sleep, and the movement of night around her, he turned on the bedside lamp. He turned back the bedclothes. _Gods._ There was no cotton nightgown to obscure his view. She lay with one arm overhead, one flung out to the side, (where it had apparently knocked her pillow to the ground). Her hair, somewhere between chocolate and Irish Setter, was all about her head, partly covering her face. He gloated over a landscape of pink-tipped breasts, full curves and the gratifying triangle of dark hair between her legs; a beacon, a marker at the core of her pale body.

  
He bent over her, making a soft, light suckle at her breast. She squirmed in sleep, almost a protest. He'd played this game before... his kisses and touches fed her dreams, colored them. He was outside of it, alone and voyeuristic. It pleased him.

  
Still sleep touched, he propped on his side, one hand lazily drawing figure-eights around her breasts. Belle murmured in sleep, and he let his hand travel down her body, tickle against the little patch of fur. He felt curious about her, even when he was familiar with her responses. He closed his eyes for a moment, re-living the nights she'd bled. Her sleep had been so restless, her belly hot and her limbs uncharacteristically cold. He'd slipped his fingers beneath the aggravation of the pad, its chemical scent bothersome. He'd touched her... tasted her. It felt as if it strengthened him, a peculiar undercurrent of his arousal. Perhaps it fed the Dark One.

  
He loved her, so. It pained him to feel the extent of it, and to think of how different were his feelings from those he'd felt with Milah and Cora... both times he'd called the feelings love. Now he felt that it must have been something different... or maybe there were different kinds of love. It pained him, too, to feel his internal tug-of-war over Belle. He struggled between wanting to give her her freedom to explore, to grow; for there was so much alive and prone to wandering within her; but he also wanted to lock her away. It was his instinct, his way to keep her safe and sound. It was difficult to fight himself, to fight what - on a gut level - felt _right_.

  
Opening his eyes, he puled the covers over Belle again, protecting her from the cold. Tucked in, as she'd fretted over Gizzard; safe and sound, as was his wish for her. She curled up to him, unconsciously casting her spells of nympholepsy. Her spells complicated his very clear feelings of love... he was also addicted to her. He was addicted to her scent and taste, to the way she felt and the space, the time she occupied in his life. She was in his blood, a part of him. It was ghastly, unthinkable to consider her absence.

  
"Wumpelss."

  
It surprised him a little. Rumpelstiltskin's nakedness felt odd, even under the covers. He craned his neck to see Gizzard, perched on the footboard.

  
"Gizzard."

  
"Gizzard drunk."

  
"You've been drinking, old man?"

  
"Dagger magic. Stuck on hands and furs."

  
"Drunk on magic."

  
"Aye."

  
The Spret, for all he claimed to be drunk, was spookily somber and quiet. Even the little, wizened and funny face was different.... big, liquid-dark eyes, full of mystery. He slid down to the bed and began to make a trek up the rumpled coveres. He climbed over the shape of Belle, and she made a little moan, a small sound of inquiry in her sleep. Coming to her hair, he began to nest.

  
"Sleep here. With mama. _Belle_."

  
Rumpelstiltskin felt uneasy with the notion... he was protective over Belle's nakedness, under the covers. Protective of her dreams.

  
"Perhaps not, Gizzard. Belle's very tired."

  
"Gizzard, too. _Bone_ tired. Give out."

  
Rumpelstiltskin studied the little Spret. He did look rather wrung out... the big, black eyes were disappearing beneath heavy, lightly furred eyelids. The tiny, cat-like mouth, slightly open as sleep came rapidly... a peep of pink tongue.

  
"Alright." he murmured.

  
He turned out the lamp and folded himself around Belle, his head touching hers. In darkness, he heard the tiny, wheezy whistle that was Gizzard's snore.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Belle's dreams took her outside of Rumpelstiltskin's house. It was hidden from the road, nestled in trees at the end of its long, lonely drive.

  
Part of the sky was rose-orange, the sun disappearing. Part was violet, deepening to night. The tops of the trees were taking on the last of the light, and swayed, restless. Nearby fields rustled with the rattle and clack of parchment leaves, stalks and grasses, a bone-yard windchime in the dying of the year. Discontent crows muttered to themselves.

  
Lights were on in the house, and she could see inside. She couldn't seem to _get_ there... every time she tried, approaching one door or another, she got turned around. She faced the deepening woods. She wound about, the brightening stars a dizzy whirl overhead. Orion was there; one-two-three. And his little dog, too. She listened for a distant call.

  
Rumpelstiltskin moved about, inside the house. She watched him, her mind warm with his name. She felt him. Her dream body moved with him, yet was outside, voiceless. She touched her hand to the cold metal of the car in the drive. She heard a scurry, and the liquid trill of chimney sweeps... they flew in spirals over the house, lost in darkness.

  
There were ghosts in the house, and Rumpelstiltskin didn't see them. Every so often he cocked his head, face pensive, listening. He was _aware,_ but did not see. He looked at his watch. _I'm here_ , Belle tried to say. The words were only a rustle, like the spent fields. Maybe the wind, or a soft paw on leaves.

  
Ghosts followed him around. They peered from the windows, out into the night. Could they see her? Did they know she was there? They were outside, too... under the water of the creek, at the forest's edge.... Not restful, not purposeful. Aimless. Wandering. Did they wait?

  
They were like thick, drifts of dust, sand. Ghosts that drift, bridal. Rumpelstiltskin came outside. Some things scurried from him, some sidled up to him, wanting to be near. Surely he would see her... but he didn't. They weren't sharing the same world. She was one of _them_ , the ghosts. She drifted, and he was restless and wired with sensing her... like a dog, he scented her. He was agitated. He paced.

  
Gizzard sat perched on Rumpelstiltskin's shoulder. Rumpelstiltskin looked through her, but Gizzard could _see_.


	24. Halloween

Things were changing. Ideas that seemed somewhat magical in thinking were taking hold. People wanted to believe, they wanted an out. An escape.

  
It was a tricky atmosphere, and it made Rumpelstiltskin happy. He beamed at Belle. "Halloween is coming." he told her. "Another time when 'the veil is thin'. The portals are active and restless... doorways and change become more possible."

  
Everywhere she went, Belle saw merchants selling adult coloring books. Even at the register at Granny's, there they were, along with bright, little packages of Crayons.

  
Ruby said, "Everyone will wonder why all of the Crayons look shiny and new except for 'Flesh Tone'."

  
She grinned, full of mischief, but - no - they weren't that sort of 'adult'. People suddenly wanted play, imaginative forms of stress relief. The adults were more interested in Halloween than the children... they wanted costumes, pretend. Other worlds and other chances... other selves.

  
"Does this happen every Halloween?" Belle asked.

  
Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. "I think not. The portals change, as does the land. The people are not generally so changed. I wonder if Miss Swan is closer to breaking the Curse."

  
"Do you think so?"

  
He only smiled; he was suddenly full of smiles, as excited by the inexplicable sense of possibility as the rest of Storybrooke.

  
Belle thought it might be possible... Ruby bought a furry cap with wolf ears. Mary Margaret said she was dressing up as a princess to hostess a Halloween party. Regina was in the foulest of moods, marching through town with looks that were blacker and more disdainful than any of Rumpelstiltskin's.

  
"Careful, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin told her. "Someone's likely to capture you in one of these." He held up a glass, witch ball, filled with a swirl of colors, like the Northern Lights.

  
"You're hilarious, Gold."

  
"They're selling remarkably well. And quite suddenly."

  
The lift of Regina's lip, bringing her rogue, little scar into play, was akin to Rumpelstiltskin showing his bottom teeth. It made Belle uncomfortable to be around the two of them, together, and she jumped a little when Regina said, "I trust you're doing well, Lacey."

  
"Oh... yes, Madam Mayer. Thanks." Her words were something of a stumbled mumble, and the look Regina gave Rumpelstiltskin said - _well, you don't keep her around for her brains, do you?_

  
Belle sighed. She was out of sorts, generally. Even without Regina's presence. It was the _people_. They were like the buzz of wires, above and below ground, or the nervous tic of florescent lighting. The disruption of the microwave oven and the headachy, clammy-skin feeling that poured form all of the little boxes.

  
Ruby, hip jutted out over impossibly long legs, eyes in a coy tilt as she spoke with some guy on her cell phone. (Boy, _no_.) Henry's fingers and thumbs moving over an electronic game, or over his own phone, as if he was a code breaker. Every booth at Granny's with its accompanying lap top, or something similar, blocking the faces of patrons and filling the air with static, murky and muddled.

  
Now it seemed a buzzing, and a feeling like spun strands of glass came from people. Even without their little boxes in hand. They often seemed desensitized... Belle felt _too_ sensitive. Sensitivity hurt. Some of the people seemed shielded in something glass-like, oblivious to feeling, to pain or need. Feelings slid off of the glassy shields, never known, acknowledged or returned. They collided into Belle, who seemed to feel every damn thing. She was growing breathless and sick with it.

  
Others, very abruptly, seemed to lack any shielding at all. It was like they wanted to suck Belle in, although they seemed unaware of their vortex-like powers. She listened, and it was if a surprising number of people in Storybrooke had never been listened to, before. Lacking shielding, some sort of dark energy came from these people, like tentacles on a squid or an octopus, and tried to wrap around Belle. They took from her, depleting her. She was left hollowed.

  
Rumpelstiltskin felt it happening, and growled and glowered so that others left her alone. She was a little embarrassed, but grateful. Gizzard could _see_ it. In the evenings, he _worked_ on her, much like she _worked_ on Rumpelstiltskin's leg. He said, "Us stands between the old world and the world of man. Us stands between the child, Belle, and Belle in the world of men."

  
"Who is 'us', Gizzard? You?"

  
Rumpelstiltskin sat nearby in a wing chair, Belle and Gizzard on the floor, before the fire. He had his long nose in a book, but Belle could feel that he listened.

  
"Us's. Gizzard and Gentry."

  
"Faerie?"

  
He made a little grunt, pulling something invisible from her. It seemed long and sticky on his little hands; webbing. Belle shuddered. He rolled it up and threw it in the fire... Behind her, Belle heard the shifting of logs, sending up sparks in the fireplace.

  
"Aye. Us's of hell." His voice grew more growly by the second. "Us rise up, protect Belle, help Wumpelss in this world."

  
Well... she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

  
"How did you come from the dagger, Gizzard?" In her head, she heard the way Rumpelstiltskin had begun referring to him as 'The Gizz'.

  
" _Trew_. Not _from_. Brother's in hell, and is door."

  
"Your brother?"

  
He shook his head. "Not I. Dagger."

  
Rumpelstiltskin stopped pretending to read. He was quiet, but closed his book and looked at Belle and Gizzard.

  
"The dagger's brother." Belle repeated.

  
"Aye."

  
"It's... brother... lies in hell?" Please, she thought. Let it simply be a name for an underground world. A Fae underworld. Let that be all.... though, aside from Gizzard, she knew nothing, truly, of the Fae. Maybe "all" was hell-a-plenty.

  
Gizzard's voice became gravel, so that Belle felt the hairs on her arms and neck stand. He closed his eyes and raised both hands, like a sermonizing preacher gone spiritualist. He growled, "Us in hell adores the brother, _spirit_ ; magic kills Dark One and makes him rise. _The king is dead long live the king_."

  
Gizzard remained in his meditative state, swaying a little. Belle's eyes went to Rumpelstiltskin and were met... He looked spooked. Too late, Belle realized that Gizzard's stance was one of _summoning_. Owls crowded at the dark windows, the white faces of the barn owls ghostly. Their wings beat glass; it was shockingly loud. Outside was a circling, yipping and howling of coyotes, and a terrifying, mournful scream that must have been a fox.

  
Heavens only knew about the _others_... those things unseen. Did he call them, too? Belle felt like a statue... of the fight or flight concept applied to fear and adrenaline, her body had rejected both and landed on freeze. She was frozen, like a rabbit, all of the rushing chemicals her body made going toxic in her bloodstream. It appeared the same was happening to Rumpelstiltskin.

  
But after only seconds; it felt like much longer; Rumpelstiltskin said, "Gizzard. That's enough." His voice was quiet, but Gizzard's eyes opened. The animal kingdom retreated. If there were ghosts, entities, Belle hoped they retreated as well.

  
Gizzard met Belle's eyes, and his voice was still growly. Sometimes his brogue was not unlike Rumpelstiltskin's. "Dark one departed this world, took magic with himself. Men, here, no more know it. _Us_ stands between Belle and the world of man."  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"I'm a little afraid of him." Belle whispered.

  
"Of The Gizz?" Rumpelstiltskin asked.

  
They were in the kitchen, Belle on the pretense of 'helping'. Rumpelstiltskin made a savory pie of meat and vegatables. He was still the better cook of the two.

  
Belle nodded. She wasn't sure of the distance over which Gizzard could hear. Or maybe his hearing was psychic, or he simply _knew._.. both of which would make her whisper useless.

  
"Don't be, sweetheart. He's a good guardian. He'd kill for you."

  
"Well... that kind of scares me."

  
Pausing in his domesticity, Rumpelstiltskin fixed her with his dark eyes. " _I_ would kill for you, Belle."

  
Apron around his waist, it was a little funny. It was true, though.

  
"I know."

  
"Do you fear me, then, dearie?"

  
"Only sometimes."

  
He seemed to accept that. "I should set a little aside for him." he muttered, turning back to a chopping board full of onion, mushroms and garlic that had sprouted, not yet giving up a dream of sunlight. Those things sounded like faerie food to Belle, but she knew better of the Spret.

  
"He won't eat it." she said. "Especially not the beef. Earlier today, I saw him eating dianthus petals, and he was carrying what I think was a cricket leg. Or... some hoppy, insect thing. It looked like people carrying drumsticks at a festival."

  
"So. Match heads and bugs, then?"

  
"Yes." Belle said. "And the odd flower or green. He might like your garlic tops."

  
He smiled at her. "You're such a little mother, dearie."

  
"Hardly. I'd be arrested, the things I watch him eat. Plus, he sleeps with electrical cords and sniffs about the outlets."

  
"Well. You've an unusual charge."

  
Yes, Belle thought. The story of her life. Dropping her voice again, she asked, "Rumpel... What if he's _evil_?"

  
"You may be asking the wrong man, love."

  
"But, I mean... gates of Hell sort of evil.This world seems to function on ideals of good and evil even more than home. And we made an art form of it there."

  
Holding up a knife, orator style, Rumpelstiltskin said, "Heroes and villains. Winners and losers. The righteous and the vengeful."

  
Considering, Belle said, "Actually, I guess it wasn't all that different."

  
"The difference is in the details, dearie. I understand that's where the devil is, as well. The fine print, that's too tiny and complicated to be bothered with, full of double-speak and the legalese of a forked tongue."

  
"Oh, you love that part."

  
"Indeed." the knife resumed chopping. Onions were already sizzling in the skillet, fragrant in butter. They were followed by mushrooms and garlic... he handed the green tops to Belle. She sniffed at them, feeling an odd enjoyment of their astringent sting.

  
She asked, "Do you think there's a One True God of this world? And an opposing force, a devil?"

  
He didn't answer right away... he put her to work. Belle found herself rolling out and placing pastry over a pie dish, using delicate fingers to press it into place. Eventually, he said, "I've no idea, Belle. You've read for yourself... the religions here are many, and varied. I imagine it's safe to say that there are forces of good, forces of evil, and an entire company of forces, or simply energies that are neither. In between; both... or neutral. I've never been able to speak to the idea of deities... they often seem capricious in the writings of men."

  
Belle agreed. Some seemed to care for mankind a great deal. Some, as she'd noted while researching Cain, seemed to feed their egos, testing men. _Do you love me? Yes? How much? This much?_ Some seemed to have forgotten men, altogether, or to simply not be all that involved. They were busy with biger things, she supposed. Running galaxies... doing the math of one species contributing to the well being or demise of another. Maybe creating beings like Gizzard.

  
The bigger picture seemed worlds away from _story_ , and the sorts of good or evil that might lurk amongst men. Such as Cain, wandering. The Dark One departed this world, Gizzard said. This world. The men here no longer understood magic.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
It seemed that Belle and Rumpelstiltskin were the only ones who didn't play dress-up for Halloween. They took a stroll through town after dusk, Belle on Rumpelstiltskin's arm, and looked at merriment all around. Lamp-posts and porch rails were were bundled in tall sheaths of straw and tied with garlands of bright mums, colorful gourds and Indian corn. Attendant scarecrows lurked everywhere, and in many instances sprouted poppies or cornflowers from buttonholes.

  
... The pumpkins! Some were enormous... children ran and climbed on a playground of giant pumpkins, in colors of orange, yellow, cream, and stippled vaiations. Strings of lights hung about in the shapes of skulls and pumpkins, glowing fiery or shimmery white.

And, of course, the people.

  
Belle wondered if they were homesick, without actually realizing. Many of the children seemed outside of the homesickness, dressing up as cartoon characters, characters from television shows and movies they favored. They dressed as characters from games, and there was an entire army of zombies. Some of them were famous zombies, like Batman and President Obama.

  
Not so the adults. Everywhere Belle looked, she saw princesses, glittery faeries, princes and soldiers bearing play swords and shields. The dwarfs dressed as... dwarfs. They called themselves tramps and hobos, but it was clear to Belle that they wore mining gear and caps, many with pick-axes slung through thick, leather belts. Leroy was still giving her guilty, hound-dog looks, and he avoided her while she was with Rumpelstiltskin.

  
In addition to the glitterati of the homeland's nobility, Belle also saw shepherds, huntsmen, farriers and other smiths, milkmaids, spinsters... it went on and on. People were remembering themselves without remembering, and even if their former selves were poor and smelled always of sheep or goat, they still seemed delighted to express those selves.

  
... Maybe _too_ happy, Belle thought, pressing herself closer to Rumpelstiltskin. He pulled his arm from hers and wound it, protectively, around her shoulders. He kept her close. The revelry was beginning to seem a little out of hand. Granny's doors were flung open, even in the cold, and supplied a steady libation of spirits, wine and beer. Even Mary Margaret, in her sparkling, bride-like meringue, was getting a little loose and wild. Belle saw her turn, wide-eyed, to a noble looking David, and heard her gush, "I just saw the cutest boy in the tightest pants!" David looked as if he thought he'd misheard.

  
While Belle, curious, looked around for someone fitting Mary Margaret's description, Rumpelstiltskin said, "Come, love. Our place isn't in town, tonight."

  
"Where are we going?"

  
"Into the woods."

  
She shivered, literally with cold - she could see her breath as it formed little crystals in the air. Also with a touch of fear, trepidation. The moon was dark, the forest would be dark. Since finding the dagger, she'd been cautious about the woods.

  
She eyed the adults, all of whom were casting aside the mantles of responsibility and good behavior they normally wore. She noticed that Regina and Henry were nowhere in sight. Neither was Emma Swan.

  
"What about the children?" she asked Rumpelstiltskin. "Do you think they'll be okay? People seem to be going a bit... mad."

  
He smiled at her. All of this seemed to please him, to amuse him to no end. Belle couldn't help but feel that he looked so handsome, flushed from the cold, dashing in coat and scarf.

  
"These are their parents and townsmen, Belle. They'll be alright, aside from whatever the excess of sugar does to them." With a snort, he added, "It's the parent who should be worried... all of their children have cell phone with cameras, video.."

  
Belle smiled at that as well. Even as he said the words, she spotted a diminutive cowgirl, complete with cowboy boots of bright pink, calmly recording her mother belt out a homeland song about 'The Ditch Lily and the Bear King'.

  
She let Rumpelstiltskin guide her away from the noise and mayhem. At the edge of town, she saw lights burning in the Mayor's mansion. She saw Emma huddled in her little, candy-toy sort of car, her eyes trained to Regina's house. Rumpelstiltskin saw these things, too, with a glance to Belle. Her nose was running. She resisted the urge to wipe it with his scarf, giving a loud sniff.

  
Once in the woods, all seemed to fall silent. She clung to Rumpelstiltskin, trusting that he would not lead her astray... she could see nothing. The crunching and shuffle of leaves seemed to be too loud beneath their feet, though Belle couldn't imagine what need they might have for stealth.

  
The trek was relentlessly uphill. Belle huffed and puffed, lungs painful in the cold air. She could feel Rumpelstiltskin using his cane as something of a grapple, hauling himself up, hauling Belle behind. The scent of forest permeated even her runny nose and struggle for breath. Crisp or softly decaying leaves, resin and hardwood, soil and a green that was sharp, almost medicinal in the cold.

  
Then, suddenly, came something warmer in nature. It was out of place... cake? Vanilla, sugar and nutmeg... Belle felt as if there had to be oven nearby, raising batter in its heat. Somewhere, cocoa was beat into butter and sugar, its scent something of a drug.  
A soft light began to illuminate a small circle around them. Belle had been staring, without seeing, at the ground. She began to realize that she saw. Layers of leaves, roots, the movement of her legs and Rumpelstiltskin's. Looking up, she could see a short distance ahead. The light souce, she realized, was Gizzard. She didn't know when he'd arrived, but - as in her dream - he rode upon Rumpelstiltskin's shoulder. He held both hands aloft, his preacher-mode that made Belle antsy. Light spilled from his little, furred paw-hands.

  
Ahead, Belle saw the well. It had its own light. Fireflies were everywhere, blinking on and off, in great numbers. As they neared the well, one lit itself while right in front of her nose, startling her with the sudden appearance of lit insect.

  
More startling were the animals. The birds. They were silent, but shockingly present. Gathered. Owls were in trees and on the ground. Foxes, morphing from gray to red, were seated and curled up about the well. Belle gasped to see coyote, some almost as big as wolves. Rumpelstiltskin held her close, and whispered, "It's alright, love. It's all a very good sign."

  
More alrming, still, both in sight and feral, rank scent, was the presence of a black bear. It stood, pigeon toed and person-like. Like all who were gathered, it seemed focused on the well.

  
The well had been decorated. Belle had seen it often at home... it was called 'dressing'. Wells, some said to be sacred to one goddess or another, were dressed in the spring, wound about with flowers, budding branches and ribbons. It was an old tradition, persisting - like a charm for the land and its waters - long after beliefs were forgotten.

  
Belle had never seen it done at the dying of the year, nor did she know who had done it. The fireflies, along with Gizzard's light showed garlands of leaves; crimson, purple, mauve and bright yellow, the blushing orange of sugar maples. There were swags of hemlock, heavy with little cones, and glossy branches of holly, bright with red berries.

  
It hit her, then, for the first time, that Rumpelstiltskin was something of a revenant. Part man, part _returned_ man, or being. It was the time of year for such things. The shiver from the cold internalized, and her belly trembled.

  
Holding her close, he approached the well. Belle saw the unnatural at work... small prey animals scurried and cuddled amidst the predators. Rabbits, squirrels, mice and chipmunks... small wrens and pear-shaped quail... Rumpelstiltskin took a flask from his pocket; Gizzard's dagger magic. He emptied it into the well, lavender-violet-periwinkle; glowing and swirling as it emptied.

  
Gizzard, in his regular, little rasp of a voice, said, " _Pro-toe-plah-sum-and-soul_."

  
It startled Belle. She knew the words.

  
"Rumpel... What are we doing?" she whispered.

  
Whispering himself, he said, "We're inviting magic back into this world."

  
"Will it come?"

  
" _Pro-toe-plassssmmmmm.._."

  
"It may, dearie. Boundaries have thinned. The Curse is very weak. The magic of the dagger is potent."

  
"And then?"

  
"And then..." Rumpelstiltskin smiled down to her upturned face. Smoke, like his old magic, a lavender-blue, twilight color, honey and storm scented.... began to spill from the well. Animals and birds stirred... rustled and muttered. Gizzard sighed. A sly wind, maybe from the well, swept Rumpelstiltskin's hair back, showing widow's peak and silvery sideburns.

  
"Then, dearie, I shall have power."

 


	25. Power in This World

One of Belle's songs, playing as she busied herself about the house, had bothered Rumpelstiltskin for a long while. It was part of Lacey's music repertoire before it became Belle's; he'd had some time to contemplate and resent it.

 

_Two kinds of people in this world,_  
_winners, losers._  
_I lost my power in this world_  
_because I did not use it. (*)_

 

So I go insane, the singer went on to say, and Rumpelstiltskin felt like it was a reasonable conclusion.

  
He'd had doubts. In the Dark Castle, with his _sight_ , a gift stolen by ravishment, he had finally come to a point of such clarity. The long view was plain.

  
But, having followed that view to this world, it was as if a tricky sort of amnesia set in. Of course, it was absolute for the rest of Storybrook's denizens, save Regina; but for himself... it crept in. Perhaps he'd dreamed it all, at the Dark Castle. Some of it, in fact, _was_ dream.

  
Decision informed by dream? It was mad.

  
Thoughts of this nature eroded a part of himself away, and then the bouncy, little song came to remind him. It would happen to him. He would lose his power in this world.

  
Then came Belle, with her sleepy magic... so innate and so different from his, but alive. Within her. Not learned, like Regina's, and not stolen, like his. It was a part of her. With her, he could make things... they could build, create together. They'd made, or called Gizzard, he was sure; and Gizzard opened the dagger.

  
It was not yet dawn. The people of Storybrooke were not yet awake, hung over and confused about the intensity of what they'd felt all November Eve, the hallowed night of wild magic. The Curse was not yet broken, but his power was returned. His magic found the door he opened, and came to his call... the call of the dagger. With the power, the return of _sight_ , he knew the Curse would be broken before the day was over.

  
Regina's poison would turn on her, twisting her heart as surely as if he held it in his hand. Her instincts as a mother would override vengeance. On All Soul's Day, True Love's Kiss would break the Curse.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_Gizzard_. He'd nested in her hair. Belle was beginning to miss his affinity for power cords. He must have played in her hair all night, she thought. She woke to impossible tangles and knots... she looked like _she'd_ been playing with the power cord.

  
She sat on the bed, lazy in her nightgown, (Over long socks and under a flannel shirt), trying to sort out her hair with a comb. A brush had only made matters worse.

  
As she did, the night before was vivid in her mind's eye. The faces of animals in Gizzard's light, colored by the magic that poured from the well. Rumpelstiltskin had drawn the dagger, his name scripted on its serpent shimmer, and held it aloft. Like Gizzard, he seemed prepared to administer a blessing or anointment. The magic, serpent-like, itself; a long snake; flowed into the dagger.

  
... And then into Rumpelstiltskin, slithering up his arm, into his temple, heart and solar plexus.

  
She'd seen it, felt it. She waited for his skin, his eyes to change, but it hadn't happened. Perhaps it wouldn't, in this world. Perhaps it marked him in some other way.

  
It did other things, though. He no longer walked with a cane. His eyes were a little frightful to her... far away and preoccupied, but wild. On the brink of hysteria. She'd woken in the night to feel him inside of her, his hands in her hair, his breath at her ear, harsh, as his body moved. Again in the dark hours of morning, spooned behind her. Gods, she hoped Gizzard had scampered off. She'd felt the racing of Rumpelstiltskin's thoughts... his body was changed with the magic, spilling over with energy, with anticipation.

  
She kept coming back to protoplasm and soul. Had she dreamt it? She thought she had, in the Dark Castle. Rumpelstiltskin gave it to her, in a vial. _Protoplasm and soul_ , he told her. It looked like the dagger magic, but when she took it from him, it became a sort of egg.

  
... Oh... the animals, the birds. When the magic released, they'd made a procession. A long line of creatures; calling, howling, snarling, barking... they wound down the hill, and the birds called and flew. Rumpelstiltskin smiled, a wide, gleeful smile, and Gizzard clapped his hands.

  
It was beautiful. It was wild and terrifying. Belle's heart swelled, buoyant in her chest, painful at her ribs, with every step Rumpelstiltskin made towards magic. She swelled as he came to his power. She had a feel for it, she realized. A part of herself was even aligned to it, and recognized it. That Eve part of herself, she thought. The part that banished all thoughts of frog eating, and let the serpent slide up her body to whispser knowledge in her ear. She accepted its violence and alien ways as part of its nature.

  
And yet, she didn't want Rumpelstiltskin to change. She wanted him to be _himself_. She feared the advent of power meant the return of the revenant, but Rumpelstiltskin said the Dark One had never left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*) Go Insane, Lindsey Buckingham


	26. Ghost World

Belle sat beside Ruby, rubbing her back. Up and down, big circles; be calm, she thought.

  
First there had been chaos. People ran in the streets, alternately ecstatic or mournful. Rushing memory and identity warred with the overwhelming realization, _it was all a lie._

  
Regina was more or less under house arrest. Only Henry, with Emma's help, kept all of Storybrooke from tearing her apart. Pretense was gone; if they wanted to, they could be savages. They made Rumpelstiltskin look tame.

  
Leroy, of course it was Leroy, had already discovered that leaving town came with a caveat. People had questions : Who are we? Why haven't we transported back? Do we want to go back? Why must we forget again if we leave?

  
After chaos came something more unsettling. The quiet. The streets were empty, but for the occasional, strolling or staggering, lone figure. Shops were closed, even Granny's. A different sort of wind came slinking down the streets, swirling leaves in little dervishes and causing a soft howl down alley ways and over rooftops.

  
Belle saw Rumpelstiltskin, all in black. When he walked down the sidewalk, even the leaves seemed to move aside for him. It was no secret, now. The town knew him, and had tried to contain him as they did Regina.

  
They couldn't, however.

  
Without a cane, he swaggered. His shoulders swayed beneath his dark coat, and Ruby let out a little sob to see his corvine approach.

  
"It's okay." Belle said, her voice a low hush. They sat side by side, bottoms perched on a table, feet resting in the seat of the booth. They'd been staring out the window, at the ghost town.

  
"You're with the _Dark One_ , Lace... Belle." Ruby sniffed. "How can you do it? Doesn't it bother you?"

  
"You don't know him."

  
"I know things he's done."

  
_And you're a wolf_ , Belle thought. _You've tasted blood_. She didn't say it.

  
"I love him, Ruby. I'm sorry if it frightens you."

  
Ruby sniffed again, then said, "We don't even know each other. I don't know the first thing about Belle."

  
It hurt. It surprised Belle to feel as hurt as she did. Still rubbing Ruby's back, she murmured, "You know me."

  
But it was a lie; wasn't it? Ruby had known Lacey, and when Belle arrived, she'd pretended. Ruby couldn't know the Belle who loved Rumpelstiltskin, knowing full well who and what he was. Maybe she wouldn't want to know that Belle.

  
Rumpelstiltskin opened Granny's door, and his expression softened. Belle wondered if he felt sympathy for Ruby.

  
"Come along, dearie." he said, softly.

  
Ruby looked away, and said, "Guess you better go. Evil Daddy's come to fetch you."

  
Ignoring that, Belle tucked a strand of dark hair behind Ruby's ear. It still bore a long streak of red, decoration from the night before.

  
"Are you at least glad to know who you are?" she asked.

  
Ruby nodded, then -impulsively - turned and hugged Belle. Belle hugged back, squeezing hard.

  
" _Bye_." Ruby breathed.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"Belle, what do you want?" Rumpelstiltskin asked.

  
... And well he might, Belle thought. She'd been weepy since leaving Ruby, and didn't really know what to do with herself.

  
"What do you mean?"

  
They sat in the car, the engine running, keeping the car warm. They were at the edge of town... Rumpelstiltskin was ready to find his son. A spell, Gizzard-gifted, was at the ready in order to cross the town line.

  
Rumpelstiltskin seemed troubled, and held her hand. Pulling off her knit glove, he held it in both of his hands, and kissed her palm.

  
"What do you want to do, sweetheart? What is your desire for your own life? Do you want to stay here?"

  
"In Storybrooke?"

  
"Aye. With your friends. I would come back for you." Smiling, he added, "You could find out what they decide to do with Regina."

  
Belle smiled as well. In truth, she didn't know how she felt. Her mind was full of the magic that was now in this world, at least in Storybrooke. She wondered what that meant about the other world... the one she came from. Did she want to return? She wondered, too, about Gizzard. Had they made him, somehow? _Protoplasm and soul_. Rumpelstiltskin said they had, but it was her magic that birthed him. She felt attached, even knowing that his magic and nature were as wild, maybe as unknowable as the Dark One. For now, while they traveled, he was was in Ruby's care... as much as he could be in anyone's care... and Ruby would also look after Chloe.

  
Would the people of Storybrooke want her in their midst? A woman who would listen to serpents... who courted a goblin and was growing into her own brand of weird, witchery...?

  
"I want to be with you, Rumpel."

  
It was the one thing that stayed constant; true. It brought her from the Dark Castle to Storybrooke, and she thought, in one form or another, it had played out over lifetimes. Whether coached in magic by a fallen angel, an underworld goblin; or whether she opened a book and impulsively called out a name; she sought the same thing, the same love, over and over.

  
Maybe she, too, was born to wander. To be banished to the Land of Nod, following her dark lover.

  
"Are you sure, love?" Rumpelstiltskin asked. "From this point, on... so much is unknown."

  
Belle said, "Yes. I'm sure."

  
He gave a little nod and kissed her hand once more. From his pocket he retrieved a fig; the object upon which he and Gizzard had worked their spell. Now it was ensorcelled. Belle watched as he dug his thumb into its skin, splitting it open in an almost brutal manner.

  
Earthy, mossy colored skin opened to frilly flesh of copper-rose, and a sugary scent filled the car. He handed half of the fig to Belle.

  
"Cheers, my love."

  
"Cheers." Belle returned, accepting the fruit.

  
She shivered as she watched his tongue plunder the sweet, delicate flesh, a shimmer at his chin where magic stained. Her own half was oddly warm in her hand, and gave its own shimmer. She bit into it, a scent and feel of summer filling her head. They ate the fig, skin and all, and licked their fingers. Their memories were theirs to keep. Rumpelstiltskin gave her a little kiss.

  
"Ready, dearie?"

  
"Ready."

  
He shifted the car into gear, and they crossed the town line.

 

 

THE END

 


End file.
